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Purpose: Growing data support interprofessional teams as an important part of medical education. This study describes attitudes, barriers, and practices regarding interprofessional education (IPE) in internal medicine (IM) clerkships in the United States and Canada., Method: In 2009, a section on IPE was included on the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine annual survey. This section contained 23 multiple-choice questions exploring both core and subinternship experiences. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Rasch analysis., Results: Sixty-nine of 107 institutional members responded to the survey (64% response rate). Approximately 68% of responding clerkship directors believed that IPE is important to the practice of IM. However, only 57% believed that it should become a part of the undergraduate clinical curriculum. The three most significant barriers to IPE in the IM clerkship were scheduling alignment, time in the existing curriculum, and resources in time and money. Although more than half of respondents felt IPE should be included in the clinical curriculum, 81% indicated that there was no formal curriculum on IPE in their core IM clerkship, and 84% indicated that there was no formal curriculum during IM subinternship rotations at their institution., Conclusions: There is limited penetration of IPE into one of the foundational clinical training episodes for medical students in Liaison Committee for Medical Education-accredited schools. This may be related to misperceptions of the relative value of these experiences and limitations of curricular time. Learning in and from successful models of interprofessional teams in clinical practice may help overcome these barriers.

Purpose: To describe current patient safety curricula at U.S. and Canadian medical schools and identify factors associated with adoption of these programs., Method: A survey was mailed to institutional members of the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine at U.S. and Canadian academic medical schools in 2006. Respondents self-reported implementation of patient safety curricula and associated methods of instruction at the institution level., Results: The survey had a 76% response rate (83/110). Only 25% of institutional members reported that their schools had explicit patient safety curricula. All respondents that reported having curricula use lectures and small-group instruction, and these were more likely to occur in preclinical settings. Topics and methods of instruction included reporting adverse incidents and analysis of medical errors; improvement of physician order writing to prevent medication errors; core measures; national patient safety goals; and standardization of medical care through the use of clinical guidelines and order set templates. Although only 25% of respondents reported having explicit curricula, 72% agreed that patient safety instruction should occur during medical school., Conclusions: Despite calls from regulatory, medical, and educational organizations to increase patient safety training of medical students, internal medicine clerkship directors report that few schools in the United States and Canada have implemented specific patient safety curricula. Most existing patient safety curricula use lecture and small-group discussion as preferred methods of instruction.