Table 2.
Qualitative Themes from Focus Group Interviews with Representative Quotes. Symbols Annotate Relation to Survey Constructs
| Theme | Representative quotes from residents | Representative quotes from sonographers |
|---|---|---|
| Enhanced respect for other professions via personal interaction*† | “It’s kind of like you live in these different worlds, like a super Republican and a super Democrat coming together and be like ‘hey we would never talk in a normal situation but let’s talk’. Because I think we all struggle with knowing where our scopes of practice are.” | “I even had a chance to ask some of them why have doctors ordered this, like what are you looking for in this or that weird order. . . . Hearing that explanation from them it’s like ‘okay, I get it.’” |
| “You automatically grow an appreciation for the sonographers who are able to get images when you’re sitting there, you have the probe on the same spot of the body that they do but in your image, you can’t see anything. It’s a white fuzzy mess and they’re able to hone-in and get a great image.” | “You know, I got a bigger picture than what we’re typically looking at. . .patient care is just obviously collaborative.” | |
| Implications for future practice* | “I think I’d be more likely to ask them a question of what they think is going on instead of waiting for the radiologist read. I’d just be more open to talking shop if you walk in while they’re working at obtaining images.” | “Just the ability to . . . work alongside them and being able to communicate [effectively] with them will help regardless of where we’re working at.” |
| “There have been several times where I would go into a room and someone’s doing an echo or an ultrasound and I just start talking to the patient not thinking that it has a bearing on the images they collect. But today some of the patients would say things while I was trying to get the image and it would throw off the entire image. So I think I’ll be cognizant of interrupting the scans.” | “I think they understand how hard it is [to get a good image] because . . . we have to know anatomy, we have to know pathologies. I think it will be easier in the future [practice] with them realizing it’s a lot harder than it looks.” | |
| Increased self- confidence of sonography students† | NA | “For me it was a big confidence boost. Like I do know what I’m doing so I think that’ll carry over into my future job and talking with physicians. Just like ‘yeah, this is what I think’ or even asking them for help or being like ‘hey, I found this’” |
| “You have two residents that you have to teach and when they leave this room, whatever you taught them, that’s what they’re going to know. So as far as leadership goes, it really made me want to do my best teaching so that [knowledge] would be carried on.” | ||
| Interest in additional IPE* | “Actually, like, physically what do the nurses do...or have them coach us a little bit…could be huge. And it would help us figure out how things work, like why things take a certain amount of time.” | NA |
| “I think in nursing sometimes, like some of the practical stuff we don’t have a full understanding of. When we put in orders and what that actually means to have it executed.” |
*Interprofessional learning
†Interprofessional stereotyping