STM Article Repository

Medical education in the current century warrants extensive multidisciplinary problem solving skills, just like multiple members in a Malaysian Keluarga (family in Bahasa Melayu) join together to solve problems in daily life, that ensure delivering cost-effective quality health care. Yet medical schools seem to be still educating their medical and health sciences students in a segregated fashion with little or no interaction with the other healthcare disciplines. In order to try to address this problem, MAHSA University and Perdana University introduced their medical students to a range of allied health professionals they are likely to team up with during patient care in future. These health care professions included nursing, biomedical science, pharmacy, psychology, from MAHSA University and occupational therapy from Perdana University. During a two hour teaching session, a simulated case-based approach was used to increase medical school students' awareness of the significance of multidisciplinary interaction and collaboration. Faculty from each of the disciplines facilitated the session by giving a brief note of their profession, including their scope of practice and academic requirements and, then proceeded to guide the students in solving issues related to patient care of the case presented. Participants were asked to answer a brief 12-item feedback survey questionnaire at the end of the session to evaluate the experience. Even though this was only a short, explorative project, feedback survey results indicated that participants were able to understand the importance of other healthcare professions in overall patient care, and also understood when to refer to and collaborate with these professions. Outcomes from this pilot project can help in optimizing future initiatives of this type.