Collaboration and teamwork between health professionals are crucial in providing high-quality patient care [1,2]. This allows a holistic approach to treatment [3] and ultimately improves patient outcomes [4].

There have been criticisms that “learning together” does not necessarily mean “working together” [1], and some doubts about the effectiveness of early interprofessional education (IPE). Nevertheless, interprofessional education is regarded as an effective method for removing barriers and conflicts between different types of professionals [5,6]. IPE can promote a team-based approach to treatment by removing stereotypes against other professions [7], instilling the right values and attitudes toward all professions (including one’s own), and creating a culture of mutual respect between different professions [8,9].

Due to these reasons, many countries around the world have built a healthcare system that guarantees effective cooperation between health professionals. They are also making investments and policies aimed at strengthening such IPE between health professionals [6]. However, IPE is an unfamiliar concept in South Korea’s organizational culture and clinical environment. The Korean organizational culture is based on a pre-modern Confucian patriarchal system, which is characterized by collectivism and a high degree of uncertainty. In this type of organizational culture, there is an inherent lack of understanding of IPE and almost no effective method to resolve interprofessional conflicts.

Therefore, this study investigated the present status of interprofessional conflicts and the demand for IPE in order to inform the development and implementation of IPE curricula. Specific problems addressed in this study are as follows:

(1) Have physicians and nurses received IPE in the past? How do they learn about other health professions?

(2) Have physicians and nurses experienced conflict with other health professionals? What do they believe was the cause of such conflict and how did they resolve it?

(3) Do physicians and nurses wish to receive IPE? If so, when do they believe would be the most appropriate time for this?

The fundamental reason why collaboration between health professionals is necessary is that the common goal of all health professionals working at hospitals is to provide high-quality care to patients. Doctors and nurses have different duties in their respective areas of medical treatment and nursing, but all of these duties are connected with patients’ health. As a part of the overall hospital environment, the provision of medical treatment and nursing is affected by both the hospital’s overall organizational culture and the subcultures of each profession. This study highlights some of the realities of interprofessional conflict and IPE and provides a number of implications regarding the South Korean hospital organizational system, its culture, and IPE in healthcare.

According to the results of this study, about 80% of doctors and 97% of nurses had experienced at least one interprofessional conflict. Despite this, the findings revealed that an official system for resolving such conflict did not exist in the hospital, and the majority of the respondents were simply not aware of the presence or the lack of such a system.

If the team-based approach to treatment is seen as a collaborative process between different health professionals with different goals, values, and cognitive structures, then interprofessional conflict is somewhat inevitable. The important thing, however, is not so much the conflict itself, but the ability to resolve conflicts using rational solutions, using these to improve the hospital organization and induce changes within it. The establishment of a system for officially reporting, investigating, and resolving conflicts between health professionals is necessary; such conflicts may function as a driving force for organizational development.

The fact that the majority of doctors and about a quarter of nurses of nurses chose to remain silent in the event of an interprofessional conflict shows that the culture of healthcare organizations in South Korea is being dominated by a hierarchical, Confucian, patriarchal tradition.

As one study indicates, in Korean organizational culture, which emphasizes collectivism over individualism and has its basis in Confucian patriarchal tradition and familial values [13], social status and class are important, and reticence and patience are considered noble attributes. In order to adjust to and survive in the group they belong to, health professionals naturally internalize societal norms and learn to remain silent and patient [14]. In this type of culture, conflicts are often resolved in an irrational manner, and outcomes can depend on one’s social status. This type of atmosphere can make people think that speaking out on an issue will not change anything or that they are not in a position to speak out about something. While hospitals in Western countries have a culture that resolves interprofessional conflicts in a reasonable way through an official organization of the hospital, Korean hospitals tend to handle the conflicts unofficially, mainly attributable to collectivism based on the hierarchical relations. Changing a culture is not easy, but the hierarchical organizational culture in South Korean healthcare systems should be reformed through gradual progress.

According to the results of this study, a majority of doctors and nurses learn about other health professions through personal experiences or other unofficial ways, and not through official educational programs or courses. This implies that learning to understand and collaborate with other health professionals can be very situation-dependent, rather than organizational or systematic. In other words, differences in the capacity to understand and collaborate with other health professionals can result from environmental factors, such as the people that an individual meets at work, the types of situations that they encounter, and their inclination and determination to understand other professions. To overcome the limits of such situation-dependent education, it is necessary to formalize IPE in the college curriculum, which is the initial stage of a health professional’s training [15]. There is also a need to make it mandatory for health professionals to receive official IPE when they begin to work at hospitals after graduation.

In this study, participants identified personal, rather than systemic, factors as being more important in causing interprofessional conflict. This suggests that strengthening IPE educational programs could be as effective in resolving interprofessional conflicts as improving hospital collaboration systems. There is a need to provide information about the work of other health professions in the IPE curriculum [2] in order to correct stereotypes and encourage positive attitudes toward all professions [16].

An encouraging fact is that a significant proportion of the participants (62.8% of doctors and 78.3% of nurses) expressed a strong intention to receive IPE when the opportunity becomes available. This kind of optimistic attitude shows that these health professionals recognize the need for IPE, and its value. It also suggests that an IPE curriculum suitable to the Korean healthcare system will need to be developed to meet the needs of health professionals. In addition to considering the development of an IPE curriculum for medical students, an appropriate educational program for new interns and nurses is also desirable.

Since the study sample is limited to physicians and nurses of the three university hospitals, the results may not be representative of the entire physicians and nurses.

In South Korean hospital organizations, where individualism and Confucian patriarchal tradition coexist, many doctors and nurses have experienced conflict with other health professionals. However, an official hospital system for resolving these conflicts has not yet been developed, and health professionals are not given enough opportunities to receive IPE. Nevertheless, the fact that many doctors and nurses express a strong wish to participate in IPE is very encouraging. In order to expand IPE opportunities, an appropriate educational system, and a curriculum will need to be developed. As an important method of breaking down intellectual and cultural barriers between different health professionals, IPE may help to convert the traditional and patriarchal organizational structure into an integrative, cooperative system, helping to improve patient outcomes.