Inter-professional Education (IPE) and Professional Identity: Can students’ reflective writings measure professional development?

Abstract

Background:
 In recent years, healthcare educators have increasingly embraced the use of reflective writing to assess interpersonal and professional development among healthcare students (Charon et al., 2016). Interprofessional education (IPE) is a key catalyst for professional development. Moreover, there is a significant association between professional development and reflective ability (Hoffman et al., 2016). Thus, the main aim of our research was to investigate if MPharm students’ reflective essays following IPE activities could provide information on students’ professional development?
 
 Method:
 IPE-related reflective essays had been graded for a different assessment. We chose the essays from all range of grades to ensure they were representative of each cohort. Manual qualitative analysis of an anonymised sample of 35 MPharm students’ IPE-related reflective essays (7 year 1, 14 year 2, 14 year 3) was undertaken for evidence of:
 1. Understanding of the purpose and professional application of the IPE activities
 2. Reflecting on own practice
 3. Setting targets to develop own professionalism
 4. Critiquing mainly focussed on the activities, rather than their own practice
 Each category carried one point. We referred to the 2017 Standards for Pharmacy Professionals, General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), as the reference criteria to extract themes from students’ reflective essays. Themes were coded according to the nine GPhC Professional Standards. Each essay was then scored by the researchers from 0 –3 for each theme.
 
 
 
 
 Results:
 Year 1 and Year 2 scored equally (33%) for Theme 3 ‘communicate effectively’, whilst Year 3 essays scored 80%. Thirty six percent of Year 3 essays referred to demonstrating ‘leadership skills’, compared to 21% of Year 2 and 0% of Year 1. 
 
 Conclusion:
 Themes such as communication and teamwork featured across all three cohorts, suggesting IPE activities have inherent benefits from the outset. However, leadership did not appear in any Year 1 essays, but featured significantly by Year 3, which suggests some professional skills develop more gradually than others.