Students’ interprofessional workplace learning in clinical placement

Abstract

Students’ learning in the workplace during their clinical placements is an important part of their education to become healthcare professionals. Despite the number of studies of student interprofessional learning in clinical placements, little is still known about the significance of interprofessional learning and how it is facilitated and arranged for to occur. This article aims to investigate interprofessional learning between students collaborating in a workplace-driven arrangement integrated into a clinical placement. A focused ethnographic research approach was applied, comprising observations of ten students participating in the arrangement organised by clinical supervisors on a medical emergency ward at a Swedish university hospital, followed by group interviews. Using a boundary-crossing lens, the article analyses the workplace arrangement, in which students’ learning across professional boundaries and their negotiations around a boundary object were prerequisites to coordinate their interprofessional knowledge and manage emerging challenges while being in charge of care on the ward.