Interprofessional education.

• What is interprofessional education? The most widely accepted defi nition is ‘when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care’. 1 This may include ‘all such learning in academic and work based settings before and after qualifi cation, adopting an inclusive view of “professional”’. 1 Such a broad defi nition leads to many different interpretations about how to conduct interprofessional education, so practices vary considerably. As a result, interprofessional education can be easy to do poorly, and very diffi cult to do well, depending on the perspective of individual observers. There are two, somewhat artifi cial, stages of IPE. The fi rst, generally ‘pre-clinical’, stage involves students doing things together on campus, such as joint lectures, seminars and problem-based learning (PBL) tutorials, in order to promote the mutual understanding of professional roles and potential contributions. In general, the greater the interactivity between professional groups (faculty members and students), the more effective the learning will be. The second stage is conjoint clinical learning, where learners from different professions are required to work together in order to achieve learning outcomes that involve patient care, ideally in ‘logical’ teams that refl ect their future roles in health care. 2 The theoretical basis of IPE is well described elsewhere. 3 The concept overlaps with ‘work integrated learning’, 4 which is the contemporary jargon for placing learners in the workplace for authentic learning experiences: being ‘job-ready’ is an attribute that is highly desired by employers. Successful examples include: medical and pharmacy students conducting joint medication reviews for real patients; nursing and medical students learning operating theatre or emergency room drills together ; and physiotherapy, speech pathology, occupational therapy and medical students together conducting developmental assessment of children or rehabilitation assessments for patients with an acquired brain injury. 5 For learners to take IPE seriously it is essential that IPE learning outcomes are assessed.