Changing Attitudes Among Nurses and Physicians: A Step Toward Collaboration

Nurse-physician collaboration is a major contributing factor in positive patient outcomes. A first step toward collaboration is an understanding of, and respect for, one another's roles. As part of a quality improvement project, we implemented a curriculum in which medical students "shadowed" nurses for 1 day and then measured the impact on their attitudes toward nurses' roles. Sixty-five students completed the program. Thirty students completed a validated survey instrument before and after the experience. Students demonstrated a trend toward improvement on the attitudes survey. Medical students highly valued the program and better appreciated nurses' roles.