Intro to IP

Intro to IP

The Intro to IP is designed to expose first-year students to interprofessional education (IPE).  This activity supports the IPE Framework approved by the Faculty Board at the FHS meeting in mid February, 2009.

All first-year students in Medicine, Nursing, OT, PT, and X-Ray are required to attend the Intro to IP as one of the mandatory program requirements. As well, faculty from each program volunteer to facilitate at each Intro to IP presentation.

Purpose of Intro to IP

• to connect IPE to the core competencies within a FHS curricula
• to integrate additional interactive learning into health science curricula
• to provide an opportunity for students from all HS disciplines to engage in IPE through learning from, with and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of patient/client-centred care (CAIPE, 2009)
• to model for students, through the faculty facilitators, IPE collaboration among our faculty in Health Sciences and the School of X-Ray Technology
• to assist in addressing preconceived stereotypes

Format of Intro to IP
The Intro to IP involves multi-disciplinary discussion groups.  Students view a video of a person talking about her experience of having a ‘stroke’ and her perspective on the effectiveness of her health care team. Each IP student group, with the assistance of the faculty facilitators, then discusses six critical questions based on the video:

1. What is the role of each discipline?
2. What are some other roles that each profession could have played or that this client was not aware of?
3. What are some potential challenges to collaboration in this situation?
4. What could the professionals have done to improve their collaboration in this situation?
5. What changes to the setting would help these professionals to better collaborate?
6. In general, what IPE activities do you think would best prepare you for collaborative practice in the future?

Update on Intro to IP 2011
Nearly 400 first-year Faculty of Health Sciences students participated.  Facilitators included faculty from from a variety of professions (OT, PT, Medicine, Nursing, X-Ray Technology, Psychology) and Consumer Representatives.

Update on IP Cafes 2010
291 first-year Faculty of Health Sciences students participated.  Facilitators included faculty from a variety of professions (OT, PT, Medicine, Nursing, X-Ray Technology, Psychology) and Consumer Representatives.

I found the IP Café a worthwhile experience


Update on IP Cafes 2009
In the fall of 2009, 342 first-year Faculty of Health Sciences students participated in an early-exposure interprofessional education experience, the IP Café. It supports the Framework for Interprofessional Education document adopted by the FHS Board and connects directly to the Communicator and Collaborator core competencies in the curricula. The IP Cafés focused on interprofessional groups of students from X-ray, Nursing, OT, PT, and Medicine watching a video of a patient/client who had a stroke discuss her perspective on the role of each professional on her health care team. Student IP groups, through discussions and conversations, then learned about the role of each profession, how to improve communication and collaborative practice, as well as identified stereotypes and pre-conceptions about various health care professions. Each IP Café included Faculty facilitators from each discipline to guide and coach the student discussions. The student and facilitator feedback was very positive. For example, an overwhelming percentage of students and faculty facilitators believed it was a worthwhile IPE experience (see chart below).

I found the IP Café a worthwhile experience.