Preparing students for interprofessional teamwork in health care

Abstract

In response to community demand, The Office of the Coordinator of Health Sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada developed a two-day Interprofessional Team Building workshop and piloted it twice. The workshops included faculty and students with clinical experience from nine different health and human service programmes. The design of the workshop was drawn from team-building theory and exercises used in business education. It was augmented by clinical examples and case-based discussions. The purposes of the workshop were: to expand a student's knowledge of other disciplines, to develop skills that enable optimal performance within a team, and to provide an opportunity for students from a variety of disciplines to learn from and about each other. The workshops were highly successful and provide a model for introducing interprofessional education into traditionally segregated university curricula.