title: Interprofessional education: cooperation among osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and physician assistant students to recognize medical errors.
abstract: Thirty-nine volunteer students from 3 health science colleges at Touro University California participated in an exercise designed to promote interprofessional collaboration. In the event, thirteen 3-person multidisciplinary teams of students identified potential medical errors in a series of case-based scenarios. In an immediate postevent survey, 33 of 39 respondents (85%) indicated that the exercise marked the first time that they had worked on clinical problems with students from other health professions. All respondents agreed that interprofessional education was useful and necessary. A 6-month follow-up survey had 24 respondents, 9 of whom (38%) indicated that the experience helped them in interprofessional communications in their clinical rotations. Twenty-two respondents (92%) recalled that all team members were involved in the selection of answers. Respondents reported that team answer selections were made by consensus (12 [50%]), by accepting the opinion of an "expert" on the team (9 [38%]), or by majority vote (3 [13%]). Since this exercise, there has been a surge of interprofessional activities at Touro University California, including steps toward the implementation of campus-wide interprofessional education.
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, Touro University California, Vallejo, CA 94592-1187, USA. kmeszaro@touro.edu
authors.forename: Károly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mészáros
authors.forename: Ingrid C
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Lopes
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Goldsmith
authors.forename: Katherine K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Knapp
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010021:Osteopathic Medicine / Q000193:education* / Q000592:standards; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D010604:Pharmacy; D010823:Physician Assistants / Q000193:education*; D012307:Risk Factors