Healthcare professional students are growing increasingly eager for physician-pharmacist collaboration. For example, scores of first-year medical students’ on the Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration have increased over the past few years at our institution by an amount that is statistically of crucial practical importance. At the same time, first-year pharmacy students consistently scored even higher on the scale than did medical students. Moreover, the scores of prospective medical and dental students can be raised even more, to those of pharmacy students, simply by having these students work together on interprofessional learning teams in a required, first-year biochemistry course (also an increase of crucial practical importance).
While entering students now strongly endorse Inter-Professional Education (IPE) programs, various academic institutions have failed to sustain such programs for at least three decades. Educators continue to experiment with a wide array of new IPE models, but best practices to produce and maintain team-based care are poorly defined (e.g., Abu-Rish et al. 2012 J Interprof Care 26: 444-451). Instead, programs come and go but few last more than a few years. In this Frontiers Research Topic, we seek works designed to overcome the formidable obstacles to IPE and physician-pharmacist collaboration. Topics of interest include building support for IPE and overcoming barriers to it. Descriptions of existing programs and their assessment are also welcome. We especially solicit research papers showing successful IPE outcomes and achievement of core competencies. In addition, we seek descriptive papers of successful pharmacist/physician collaborations in practice and challenges to creating and maintaining them. Finally, and most importantly, how does collaboration affect patient care?
Healthcare professional students are growing increasingly eager for physician-pharmacist collaboration. For example, scores of first-year medical students’ on the Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration have increased over the past few years at our institution by an amount that is statistically of crucial practical importance. At the same time, first-year pharmacy students consistently scored even higher on the scale than did medical students. Moreover, the scores of prospective medical and dental students can be raised even more, to those of pharmacy students, simply by having these students work together on interprofessional learning teams in a required, first-year biochemistry course (also an increase of crucial practical importance).
While entering students now strongly endorse Inter-Professional Education (IPE) programs, various academic institutions have failed to sustain such programs for at least three decades. Educators continue to experiment with a wide array of new IPE models, but best practices to produce and maintain team-based care are poorly defined (e.g., Abu-Rish et al. 2012 J Interprof Care 26: 444-451). Instead, programs come and go but few last more than a few years. In this Frontiers Research Topic, we seek works designed to overcome the formidable obstacles to IPE and physician-pharmacist collaboration. Topics of interest include building support for IPE and overcoming barriers to it. Descriptions of existing programs and their assessment are also welcome. We especially solicit research papers showing successful IPE outcomes and achievement of core competencies. In addition, we seek descriptive papers of successful pharmacist/physician collaborations in practice and challenges to creating and maintaining them. Finally, and most importantly, how does collaboration affect patient care?
