Postgraduate internal medicine residents' roles at patient discharge - do their perceived roles and perceptions by other health care providers correlate?

Knowing one's own role is a key collaboration competency for postgraduate trainees in the Canadian competency framework (CanMEDS®). To explore methods to teach collaborative competency to internal medicine postgraduate trainees, baseline role knowledge of the trainees was explored. The perceptions of roles (self and others) at patient discharge from an acute care internal medicine teaching unit amongst 69 participants, 34 physicians (25 internal medicine postgraduate trainees and 9 faculty physicians) and 35 health care professionals from different professions were assessed using an adapted previously validated survey (Jenkins et al., 2001). Internal medicine postgraduate trainees agreed on 8/13 (62%) discharge roles, but for 5/13 (38%), there was a substantial disagreement. Other professions had similar lack of clarity about the postgraduate internal medicine residents' roles at discharge. The lack of interprofessional and intraprofessional clarity about roles needs to be explored to develop methods to enhance collaborative competence in internal medicine postgraduate trainees.

Interprofessional Skills Learning Guide: A Multimedia E-Book for Small-Group or Individual Learning.

INTRODUCTION: Redefining learning space beyond physical classrooms with fixed resources is necessary to address challenges of interprofessional learning in a clinical setting. This multimedia e-book introduces recognized team skills of shared mental models, situational awareness, and the SBAR (situation, background, assessment, and recommendation) communication tool for individual or small-group learning. The e-book was derived from work done to develop an interprofessional small-group interactive learning tool for use in a clinical environment where resources, including meeting space, time, and facilitators, were limited. It is designed for individuals early in their clinical training but who have had previous clinical experience. METHODS: Utilizing readings, a series of videos, and reflective questions, a virtual narrator guides learners through an interactive case regarding a virtual chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient preparing for discharge. RESULTS: Thirty-two responders evaluated the learning content as being clinically relevant. Comments encouraged all health care providers to become familiar with these interprofessional tools. DISCUSSION: Electronic, human, and space resources are often limited, especially in the clinical/education interface of the hospital or clinic environment for embedded interprofessional learning opportunities. The multimedia e-book provides a stand-alone learning resource for individuals or small groups of the same or different professions, with the opportunity for interactive learning with minimal space and human resource requirements.