Insights about instructional design features of an interprofessional education initiative involving clinical reasoning with physiotherapy and medicine students

Abstract

Interprofessional education aims to prepare students in health professional programmes for collaborative practice. Because of its ubiquity in healthcare, clinical reasoning can be used as a vehicle for designing interprofessional education initiatives. However, little is known about how design features of interprofessional education initiatives involving clinical reasoning are experienced by students from different professions. This evaluation study aimed to identify design features from feedback provided by students from two health professions after participating in an interprofessional education workshop involving clinical reasoning. Content analysis was used to analyse written responses from 88 fourth-year undergraduate medicine and physiotherapy students (80% response rate). Eight design features were identified and three of them were represented disproportionately when professions were compared. More medicine students requested practice presenting cases, whereas more physiotherapy students suggested emphasis on management reasoning and expressed appreciation for exchanging professional perspectives and working collaboratively. Features common to both groups of students were requests for a greater focus on case discussions, guidance about how to think about case information, explanations about how to apply knowledge to the cases, more demonstrations of how experienced clinicians think, and opportunities to learn how to be open to possibilities and consider the bigger picture. These insights can be used by educators when they design interprofessional education initiatives featuring clinical reasoning.