Physician Residents Shadowing a Certified WOC Nurse to Develop Interprofessional Competencies

PURPOSE: The aim of this quality improvement (QI) project was to assess a shadowing experience with a certifi ed WOC 

nurse (CWOCN) on 4 interprofessional collaborative practice domains: interprofessional communication, role awareness and 

responsibilities, teams and teamwork, and values and ethics for interprofessional practice. 

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Forty-nine physician residents in Family and Internal Medicine participated in this project set at 

a health system in Chicago, Illinois. 

APPROACH: Residents spent 16 hours shadowing a CWOCN and completed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative 

Competency Self-Assessment Tool (IPESAT) instrument pre- and postshadowing that measured 4 interprofessional education 

(IPE) domains: interprofessional communication, role awareness and responsibilities, teams and teamwork, and values and 

ethics for interprofessional practice. Paired t tests were performed to determine differences in IPESAT scores before and after 

the shadowing experience. 

OUTCOMES: Residents demonstrated signifi cant improvement in their overall knowledge of IPE ( P = .000) as well as knowledge 

within each of the 4 domains ( P = .000). After the shadowing experience, the overall ranking improved by 7.5%; the greatest gain 

(10.8%) occurred in the teamwork domain. 

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: We found that even a comparatively brief shadowing experience with a CWOCN improved 

knowledge in IPE competencies. The shadowing experience is now permanently part of the Internal Medicine Residency program, 

and based on these IPE outcomes, other residency programs in our setting, such as the Rehabilitation and Family Medicine 

program, have increased their requests to shadow with the CWOCN.