Abstract
The World Health Organization has recently added Interprofessional Education (IPE) to its global health agenda recognizing it as a necessary component of all health professionals' education. We suggest mandatory interprofessional shadowing experiences as a mechanism to be used by chiropractic institutions to address this agenda. IPE initiatives of other professions (pharmacy and medicine) are described along with chiropractic. This relative comparison of professions local to our jurisdiction in Ontario, Canada is made so that the chiropractic profession may take note that they are behind other health care providers in implementing IPE.Interprofessional shadowing experiences would likely take place in a multi-disciplinary clinical setting. We offer an example of how two separate professions within a Family Health Team (FHT) can work together in such a setting to enhance both student learning and patient care. For adult learners, using interprofessional shadowing experiences with learner-derived and active objectives across diverse health professional groups may help to improve the educational experience. Mandatory interprofessional shadowing experiences for chiropractors during their training can enhance future collaborative practice and provide success in reaching a goal common to each profession - improved patient care.
Highlights
Interprofessional education (IPE) has been proposed as an important foundation in preparing health professionals for patient care within collaborative care environments
We offer an example of how two separate professions within a Family Health Team (FHT) can work together in such a setting to enhance both student learning and patient care
The formal interprofessional shadowing instance described between a pharmacy student and chiropractor offers some insight for the value of including additional, typically, less diverse professions into collaborative care models
Summary
Interprofessional education (IPE) has been proposed as an important foundation in preparing health professionals for patient care within collaborative care environments. Argument for Interprofessional Shadowing to Enhance Team-Building Skills At the Rosedale Medical Group site in Hamilton, Ontario both the community pharmacist and chiropractor have been co-located within the FHT environment for greater than five years and have hosted learners for over four years [16] This opportunity for discussion and observation of the role of another health professional is an extension of IPE as well as a model for developing team-building skills for future clinical practice. The student would be able to develop team-building skills around which types of patients or patient problems can benefit from chiropractic care and how recommending such musculoskeletal treatments may be incorporated into the Pharmaceutical Care Process [22] as an adjunct or alternative for pain management in the care of future patients This interprofessional shadowing experience emphasizes the clinical utility of team-building in developing a strong support network amongst health professionals to which one’s own patients can be referred when interventions become limited. Measures of effectiveness over time could be considered [25]
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