Newly graduated healthcare workers should appreciate the importance of teamwork and each profession's unique role in a multi-disciplinary team. At Medunsa, an institution for higher education of healthcare professionals, each profession's teaching occurs independently. This study explores the perceptions of healthcare students and their facilitators of a simulated interprofessional consultation. Eighty-two senior medical, occupational therapy and physiotherapy students participated in a simulated event over three separate sessions. A multi-disciplinary team comprising one representative per profession conducted the consultation, while the other students observed. Facilitators initiated reflection at the end of each session. Participants gained an understanding of the multi-disciplinary team's functioning, the importance of professional skills and behaviour. The facilitators learnt how to improve on the simulation scenario and their facilitation skills. The introduction of interprofessional education events, where important skills and role clarification can be experienced in a non-threatening way, can benefit students and facilitators alike.

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Background: Developing interprofessional education and collaborative practice curricula benefits from multiple perspectives. There is an abundance of literature available on such curricula, but very few combine research evidence with theoretical guidelines for planning. Method: Brookfield’s theory guided a critical reflection of the development of a curriculum at a South African University, with his four identified Lenses focusing on perspectives of the: 1) principal investigator, 2) students, 3) lecturers and 4) available literature. Data were collected through focus groups with students and lecturers, a needs survey, events feedback, and review of literature. The aim of this paper is to clarify understanding and guide curriculum planning and development. Results: The two identified themes encapsulated several categories each. Theme A addresses the formal curriculum and include embeddedness across professions curricula, highlighting the importance of buy-in from management, offering it across all years of study as an integrated subject and curriculum management issues. Further considerations are the content of the curriculum, presented through a scaffolded approach, addressing core competencies and benchmarking with other institutions. The methods used for teaching, learning and assessment included the preparation of lecturers to facilitate and use of a variety of learning and assessment methods. Theme B addresses teamwork between stakeholders, including the importance of role models, patient-centred care, appreciation of diversity e.g., vernacular of the professions and level of preparedness for IPECP and the importance and affordances in terms of egalitarian relationships based on respect and recognition and hegemony. Conclusion: The lenses highlighted the complexity of curriculum planning and encapsulated both unique views as well as diverse complimentary perspectives of aspects to consider for buy-in of an IPECP curriculum.

Three lecturers respectively in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy (SLPA, OT and PT) at a public Higher Education Institution in South Africa collaborated to determine thinking preferences. The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI®) was used to collect data from three lecturers while an adapted version of the HBDI® was used to collect data from second year students and colleagues in the three disciplines. The results from students showed a trend towards left brain dominance with a primary preference for the B-quadrant mode of thinking. The students' brain dominance did not necessarily correlate with those of the lecturers or their colleagues. The results created a better understanding of students' thinking preferences, made lecturers more accountable and emphasised the importance of making provision for diversity in teaching and learning. Less preferred ways of thinking need to be challenged with a view to promoting 'whole brain' thinking.

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