Rural hospital interdisciplinary team members’ experience of undergraduate nursing preceptorship: A qualitative descriptive study

Rural hospital preceptorships offer Canadian undergraduate nursing students the opportunity to work with interdisciplinary teams. In a qualitative descriptive study, rural hospital interdisciplinary team members’ experience of preceptorship was explored. Five focus groups and eight individual in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from nursing, medicine, social work, respiratory, recreational, occupational therapy, records keeping, dietary, pharmacy, hospital administration, and laboratory services. The data suggests time and patterns of communication within the clinical learning environment influence students’ ability to effectively work within an interdisciplinary healthcare team framework. As a result, students’ exposure to the interdisciplinary team must be deliberately and carefully planned. As well, students need to learn to work effectively within the team approach through interdisciplinary education.