The Changing Context of Education: The Need for Interprofessional Education Teaching

Abstract

As the pedagogy of higher education in health care fields and human services has evolved over the past decade the need for interprofessional education (IPE) between “two or more professions learning about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” for society has come to the forefront [1]. Interprofessional higher education aims to teach students boundary-crossing skills that integrate knowledge from two or more disciplines to produce a cognitive advancement in ways that would be impossible if students are taught by soloed disciplines [1]. Students who become healthcare providers often are educated side-by-side but with little interaction between each other [2]. Increasing the link between student’s education and clinical practice can allow for more interaction between multidisciplinary health fields, with the goal of fostering interprofessional collaboration in the long-term. This study involved students from two disciplines, nursing and counseling, attending a community event together. Afterword, a focus group was held to examine how the students learned from each other and how they felt about the event which was a twohour workshop for persons addicted to opioids and their friends and family. Overwhelmingly, the qualitative data gathered from the focus group demonstrated that the students learned from each other and enjoyed the experience.