Roles in Health Care Through Interprofessional Educational Experiences

Roles in Health Care Through Interprofessional Educational Experiences

The article discusses the perceptions of nursing students on their roles and responsibilities. One of the main arguments is that nurses often misunderstand their roles and responsibilities. According to Furr et al. (2020), healthcare providers may develop a wrong perception of their colleagues’ roles and responsibilities based on their skills, realistic simulation roles, and knowledge and consider their colleagues as advocates. For example, one of the study participants stated that they assumed the pharmacist’s role was to determine the proper prescription for their patient even though they deliberate medical costs and review a patient’s history. The second main argument is that the behaviour of nursing students in interprofessional educational experiences is influenced by intimidation during the learning process, resulting in less communication with medical students.

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The authors also argue that nursing students’ socialization of their roles and responsibilities within their occupation and interdisciplinary team increases with exposure to other healthcare professions. They propose using interprofessional educational experiences to highlight the roles and responsibilities of medical practitioners before students join the professional world. They add that interprofessional educational experiences must be created and implemented to increase professional awareness. Furr et al. (2020) also argue that accreditation agencies have emphasized interprofessional educational experiences within the curricula, thus increasing students’ understanding of the roles in the healthcare profession. They also say that practices increase proficiency and confidence, thus making the experiences valuable. However, creating consistent student outcomes requires integrating the experiences into the curricula (Furr et al., 2020). They recommend developing health science-based learning institutions to improve nursing students’ understanding of roles and responsibilities in healthcare.

Additionally, Furr et al. (2020) also explore the outcomes of interprofessional educational experiences. They argue that interprofessional educational experiences include developing teamwork to improve health outcomes. They add that the experiences also increase the level of power among team members in the healthcare field. According to them, role-playing and practising situations require communication and a discussion on power dynamics among students pursuing healthcare education to increase the effectiveness in changing perceptions about power. They recommend researching how interprofessional educational experiences can be improved to help students interact well with their team members. According to Furr et al. (2020), entry-level practice should be considered because most healthcare professions offer graduate entry, but nursing is shown at the undergraduate level. They also recommend additional research to determine whether the difference in academic levels contributes to issues of perceived power and the lack of apparent voice, how to prevent victimization in the interprofessional educational experiences, whether the faculty promotes the negative stereotype of nursing, and the factors contributing to the negative stereotypes in nursing.

Consistently, Furr et al. (2020) also argue that nursing students must understand their value and worth and clearly explain their roles to others in the healthcare profession. They say that the main issue is that nursing fails to communicate nurses’ roles successfully within the healthcare setting. Therefore, the lack of understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the healthcare profession is attributed to the interaction of the healthcare profession and the healthcare curricula. They recommend increasing student participation through community-based courses where students are involved in boards within the learning institution or community boards to comprehend their role and develop comfort and confidence in the role of communication and advocacy. They conclude that educators should educate future healthcare workers on the responsibilities and role expectations of their profession and others.

References

Furr, S., Lane, S. H., Martin, D., & Brackney, D. E. (2020). Understanding roles in health care through interprofessional educational experiences. British Journal of Nursing, 29(6), 364-372. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2020.29.6.364