Promoting collaboration and cultural competence for physician assistant and physical therapist students: a cross-cultural decentralized interprofessional education model

PURPOSE: As the United States health care model progresses towards medical teams and the country’s population continues to diversify, the need for health professional education programs to develop and implement culturally specific interprofessional education (IPE) becomes increasingly imperative. A wide range of models exists for delivering and implementing IPE in health education, but none have included the cultural components that are vital in educating the health professional. METHODS: A cross-cultural decentralized IPE model for physician assistant (PA) and physical therapy (PT) students was developed. This three-part IPE series was created using an established cultural curricular model and began with the exploration of self, continued with the examination of various dimensions of culture, and concluded with the exploration of the intersection between health and culture. We assessed student satisfaction of the IPE experiences and students’ engagement and attitudes towards IPE using a three-item open-ended questionnaire administered after each cross-cultural activity and the Interprofessional Education Series Survey (IESS) upon the completion of the series. RESULTS: IESS responses showed that PA and PT students reported benefits in interprofessional collaboration and cultural awareness and expressed overall satisfaction with the series. Qualitative analysis revealed growth in student response depth consistent with the scaffolded focus of each IPE module in the series. CONCLUSION: The trends in this three-part series suggest that institutions looking to develop culturally inclusive IPE educational initiatives may have success through a decentralized model mirroring the effective cultural progression focused on addressing exploration of self, examination of various dimensions of culture, and exploration of the intersection between health and culture.