Role theory and the practice of interprofessional education: A critical appraisal and a call to sociologists (original) (raw)
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Role Theory and the Practice of Interprofessional Education: A Critical Appraisal
2014
The stated goalsand therefore manifest functionsof Interprofessional Education (IPE) are to bring students of various health professions together to cultivate mutual understanding and respect for each occupation's role(s) and foster a culture of collaboration and teamwork to promote more effective and efficient care. Yet, there are telling gaps within IPE literature regarding the application of role theory to IPE pedagogy and research. In this work, we apply a sociological lens and the tenets of role theory to identify and analyze: (a) the apparent tensions nested within IPE aims with respect to issues of role specificity and role blurring; (b) the lack of attention paid to possible role adjustment strategies utilized by IPE students; (c) ambiguities within the IPE (and IPC) literature regarding the role(s) of the patient, including a failure to adequately acknowledge the status hierarchy of health-care delivery; and (d) how IPE may serve as a catalyst to reframe understandings of the physicians as 'team leader'. In addressing these issues, we suggest discipline-specific qualities that sociologists bring to IPE research, and future directions and applications for sociologists interested in exploring elements of IPE.
Journal of Interprofessional Care, 2010
Interprofessional education (IPE) has emerged as a critical pedagogy for promoting interprofessional collaboration (IPC) within healthcare. However, the literature includes few reports of students' perspectives on IPE experiences. Understanding students' experiences is critical, as they are the crux of IPE's culture change agenda. This paper presents an autoethnographic account of my experiences as a medical student participating in an IPE placement within a Canadian academic hospital. During the five-week placement, I collected data using participant observation and reflective journaling on all placement experiences. I expanded my notes using the emotional recall technique and conducted thematic analysis. Using a series of narrative vignettes, this paper explores the relationships between my personal experience and the cultural and educational issues underpinning IPE. The first vignette explores the relationship between students' patient access and our status in tutorial discussion. The second vignette considers the impact of shadowing on my appreciation of another professional's practice. The last vignette portrays my experience learning about the complex politics that shape IPC. The conclusion suggests that the IPE placements incorporate reflexive activities (i.e., journaling and interviewing) to enhance the students' appreciation and understanding of roles, responsibilities and professional perspectives, and to promote critical thinking and professional growth.
Relationships of power: implications for interprofessional education
Journal of Interprofessional Care, 2011
Interprofessional education (IPE) is considered a key mechanism in enhancing communication and practice among health care providers, optimizing participation in clinical decision making and improving the delivery of care. An important, though under-explored, factor connected to this form of education is the unequal power relations that exist between the health and the social care professions. Drawing on data from the evaluation of a large multi-site IPE initiative, we use Witz's model of professional closure (1992) to explore the perspectives and the experiences of participants and the power relations between them. A subset of interviews with a range of different professionals (n ¼ 25) were inductively analyzed to generate emerging themes related to perceptions of professional closure and power. Findings from this work highlight how professionals' views of interprofessional interactions, behaviours and attitudes tend to either reinforce or attempt to restructure traditional power relationships within the context of an IPE initiative.
Journal of Advances in Medical Education and Professionalism, 2016
The current literature supports the inclusion of inter-professional education in healthcare education. Changes in the structure and nature of the integrated medical education and healthcare system provide some opportunities for interprofessional education among various professions. This study is an attempt to determine the perceptions of students and faculty members about interprofessional education in the context of the medical education and healthcare system. This qualitative content analysis study was conducted using purposeful sampling in 2012. Thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 faculty members and 7 students at Tehran and Iran Universities of Medical Sciences. Data collection and analysis were concurrent. Data analysis revealed four categories and nine subcategories. The categories emerging from individual interviews were "educational structure", "mediating factors", "conceptual understanding", and "professional identity...
Journal of Research in …, 2009
Background: Interest in interprofessional education (IPE) to promote effective interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has gained momentum across healthcare, professional education, and government sectors. In general, the IPE literature tends to report single-site studies. This article presents a rare study that reports a largescale multi-site IPE initiative. It draws upon a newly developed notion of mainstreaming-introduced to the literature by Barr and Ross-that helps illuminate the implementation issues related to an IPE initiative.
Theoretical insights into interprofessional education: AMEE Guide No. 62
Medical …, 2012
In this Guide, we support the need for theory in the practice of interprofessional education and highlight a range of theories that can be applied to interprofessional education. We specifically discuss the application of theories that support the social dimensions of interprofessional learning and teaching, choosing by way of illustration the theory of social capital, adult learning theory and a sociological perspective of interprofessional education. We introduce some of the key ideas behind each theory and then apply these to a case study about the development and delivery of interprofessional education for pre-registration healthcare sciences students. We suggest a model that assists with the management of the numerous theories potentially available to the interprofessional educator. In this model, context is central and a range of dimensions are presented for the reader to decide which, when, why and how to use a theory. We also present some practical guidelines of how theories may be translated into tangible curriculum opportunities. Using social capital theory, we show how theory can be used to defend and present the benefits of learning in an interprofessional group. We also show how this theory can guide thinking as to how interprofessional learning networks can best be constructed to achieve these benefits. Using adult learning theories, we explore the rationale and importance of problem solving, facilitation and scaffolding in the design of interprofessional curricula. Finally, from a sociological perspective, using Bernstein's concepts of regions and terrains, we explore the concepts of socialisation as a means of understanding the resistance to interprofessional education sometimes experienced by curriculum developers. We advocate for new, parallel ways of viewing professional knowledge and the development of an interprofessional knowledge terrain that is understood and is contributed to by all practitioners and, importantly, is centred on the needs of the patient or client. Through practical application of theory, we anticipate that our readers will be able to reflect and inform their current habitual practices and develop new and innovative ways of perceiving and developing their interprofessional education practice.