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Improved Team Climate and Increased Student Involvement with Interprofessional Learning on Labor and Delivery

Background: Students often express difficulty integrating into the obstetrical team and a desire more clinical involvement on the unit.  We hypothesized that an obstetrical nurse-shadowing experience for students could increase student understanding of the team’s function and that nurses who worked with students would be more willing to advocate for student involvement in deliveries. We planned to use the Team Climate Inventory to assess students’ inclusion in the team, and to use the percentage of students playing a hands-on role in a vaginal delivery to assess student clinical involvement.

Methods: A baseline Team Climate Inventory was administered to students in 2015.  The nurse-shadowing day was introduced in 2016-2017 and these students also completed the Team Climate Inventory; student T test used for analysis.  The percentages of students assisting in a vaginal delivery before and after the intervention were compared using Fisher’s Exact Test.

Results: Survey response rates were 38% for control group and 42% for intervention group. Significant improvement (p<0.05) was noted on all axes assessed by the Team Climate Inventory following the intervention with the largest change in Participative Safety. 64.25% of control group students assisted in a vaginal delivery; this increased significantly to 84.65% in the intervention group (p=0.009).

Discussions: The introduction of an interprofessional learning exercise on Labor and Delivery was associated with improvement in medical student assessment of team climate and with increased involvement of students in vaginal deliveries.

Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2019, Student, Faculty, Clerkship Director, Professionalism, Systems-Based Practice & Improvement, UME, Team-Based Learning, General Ob-Gyn,