A Medical student, Pharmacy student and a Nurse resident walk into a room

Learning Objectives Participants will: 1. Describe how an innovative interprofessional education project was designed and implemented in an academic clinical setting. 2. Demonstrate how simulation was employed to achieve specific Core Competencies of Interprofessional Collaborative Practice a. The Purpose of our project was to develop, implement and evaluate an interprofessional simulation program to assist medical students, pharmacy students and nursing residents in achieving the competencies required for interprofessional practice (IP). b. Background: Working as a part of an interprofessional team is an essential skill for healthcare providers. As such it has become a core competency among trainees in many professional fields. Despite this need, there is little that currently exists in the clinical curriculum for students to participate in deliberately. c. Description of Intervention or Program: An IP educational curriculum was built consisting of an online module describing each profession’s education requirements and elements of effective team function. Three simulation exercises were developed with an embedded issue requiring team approach to address the patient’s concern. The Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment survey (ICCAS) was issued pre and post program for quantitative data. Additionally a focus group was held post project for qualitative data. All participants were asked to attend all education and simulation sessions. d. Preliminary Results: Focus group comments include,” It was interesting to see different thought processes”. “We didn’t know (at first) what we were all capable of”. Initial ICCA results indicate that respondents perceive their IP abilities improved by participating in the project. Participants reported overall that they enjoyed the program and thought it should be continued. e. Relevance to interprofessional education or practice: The results indicate that by participating in the project, these emerging professionals learned about another health care team members’ scope of practice, role and capabilities to managing patient problems. f. Recommendations for future investigation and/or incorporation into education and/or practice settings: The importance of continued opportunities for emerging professionals to work together deliberately in the clinical setting will improve their outlook on team work in future interactions with other professionals. Scenarios need to be well focused and provide good opportunity for each involved discipline to contribute meaningfully. Individuals must be matched well in terms of experience or at least self-efficacy

Pain Management for Primary Care Providers: A Narrative Review of High-Impact Studies, 2014-2016

Objective: This manuscript reviews high-impact, peer-reviewed studies published from January 2014 to March 2016 that are relevant to pain management in primary care. Given the recent release of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u27s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain emphasizing the primacy of nonopioid treatment, we focused our review on nonopioid pain management. Design: Narrative review of peer-reviewed literature. Methods: We searched three article summary services and queried expert contacts for high-impact, English-language studies related to the management of pain in adults in primary care. All authors reviewed 142 study titles to arrive at group consensus on article content domains. Within article domains, individual authors selected studies approved by the larger group according to their impact on primary care clinical practice, policy, and research, as well as quality of the study methods. Through iterative discussion, 12 articles were selected for detailed review, discussion, and presentation in this narrative review. Results: We present key articles addressing each of six domains of pain management: pharmacotherapy for acute pain; interventional treatments; medical cannabis; complementary and integrative medicine; care management in chronic pain; and prevention. Within each section, we conclude with implications for pain management in primary care. Conclusions: There is growing evidence for multiple nonopioid treatment modalities available to clinicians for the management of pain in primary care. The dissemination and implementation of these studies, including innovative care management interventions, warrant additional study and support from clinicians, educators, and policy-makers

The clinic is my woodshed: a new paradigm for learning and refining communication skills

Jazz cats use the term \u27woodshedding\u27 to denote a period of intense practice during which they aim to take their playing up a few notches. Developing expertise, whether we are speaking musically or talking about communicating with patients, requires a lifelong commitment to such practice. For physicians, the woodshed is not a practice room or an isolated space. No: clinical environments are the woodsheds; they are the only places in which one can hone communication skills. The idea of \u27shedding\u27 in the setting of routine practice challenges prevailing notions about communication skills training and has implications for how such skills should be learned, nurtured and assessed. In this essay, we use stories of woodshedding from jazz music history to discuss concepts related to deliberative practice, formal education and learning communities