Junior doctors' understanding and enactment of interprofessional learning and practice: A study of international and Australian medical graduates in teaching hospitals

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Copyright: Milne, Jacqueline
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Abstract
This study explored Junior Medical Officers' (JMOs), particularly international medical graduates' (IMGs) understanding of interprofessional practice (IPP) and its links to patient safety. It investigated their willingness to practise interprofessionally and identified factors inhibiting collaborative IPP. The links between IPP and patient safety are established. Evidence supports the benefits of health professionals working collaboratively for enhanced patient outcomes. Hospital environments are complex with proliferating professional and departmental cultures. Patients are managed by a multiplicity of health professionals. We know that to practise interprofessionally challenges the territorial traditions of health professionals. An understanding of IPP and a preparedness to put patient interests before professional self interests are fundamental to realising improved patient safety. There are difficulties associated with transformation to a collaborative approach to patient care. Paradoxically, overcoming cultural boundaries between interdependent health professionals is one prerequisite for practising interprofessionally. This thesis contributes to our knowledge about junior doctors' perceptions of IPP in teaching hospitals and organisational factors challenging their interprofessional functioning. It reveals compromised intraprofessional practice linked to the hierarchical culture of hospital doctors. A triangulated method comprising semi-structured interviews, a survey questionnaire and ethnographic observations was employed for the research. Thirty two international and Australian medical graduates (IMGs and AMGs) from three Australian teaching hospitals participated. Four themes framed the study: culture, communication, collaboration and competency. The findings highlight diversity in the cultures and medical training of JMOs. Participants' experience of shared learning was minimal, limiting their proclivity to IPP in postgraduate training. JMOs' willingness to embrace IPP is overshadowed by the challenges of adapting to different cultures within hospitals, understanding other health professionals' roles, and working with inadequate support and supervision. Mutual respect and communication are lacking, both intraprofessionally and interprofessionally. Excessive demands, bounded professional cultures and uncompromising hospital organisational cultures impede IPP. The findings can be applied to other comparable settings and individual issues such as supervision, explored in further research.
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Author(s)
Milne, Jacqueline
Supervisor(s)
Braithwaite, Jeffrey
Greenfield, David
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Publication Year
2012
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
PhD Doctorate
UNSW Faculty
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