Interprofessional Workplace Learning in Primary Care: Students from Different Health Professions Work in Teams in Real-Life Settings

Interprofessional education may be defined as an occasion when two or more professions learn with, from, and about each other in order to improve collaboration and quality of care. We studied the self-reported experiences from Norwegian health care students participating in interprofessional workplace learning in primary care. We discuss the results particularly in light of self-determination theory. During 2012, 24 students from eight different health educations at the University of Bergen and Bergen University College participated in interprofessional learning in primary care organized by the Center for Inter-professional Workplace Learning in Primary Care, Bergen. The students had their training in nursing homes and public health clinics, and they wrote reflective notes describing their learning experiences. The material was analyzed by systematic text condensation. The qualitative data analyses revealed five major areas of learning experiences from workplace practice: learning in an interprofessional setting, teamwork, relationships among the teamwork members, consequences for the patient, and consequences for the future. The results indicate that there is a high degree of learning potential in interprofessional workplace activity in primary care. This kind of learning strategy is an important supplement to traditional training within all health professions.