It is important that learners graduate with the understanding of all health care team member roles to enable effective collaborative practice. Medical students are learning in environments that include interprofessional health providers (IHPs) but are not being formally taught by health professional educators(HPEs) during direct patient care. At Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, we created formal HPE learning experiences for our clerks. The impact of these formal sessions was evaluated through focused interviews.
Our results indicate that HPE clinical learning experiences enable students to have a better understanding of IHPs. Students feel that IHPs play an important role in their medical education, formal clinical HPE sessions are valuable, and formalizing the clinical learning experience has increased their respect of HPEs as teachers. Also, students feel more prepared to work effectively with IHPs to provide high-quality, patient-centred care because they saw interprofessional collaboration in action.