Over the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in higher education institutions offering opportunities for interprofessional learning (IPL) to their students. The literature presents a number of factors that contribute to effective IPL, including having trained facilitators that help optimise the learning process. Many of these IPL facilitators are university teachers and the literature provides us with some insight into their views of IPL. However, little is known about university teachers' views about IPL and their role in supporting students in achieving outcomes linked to IPL during their own teaching; this paper explores these areas. University teachers, working with students in Norway and England who contribute to patients' care pathway were purposively invited to join focus groups. Data collected from the teachers' conversations during these focus groups were analysed to elicit the main themes. Findings show that university teachers have a wide range of views about IPL, its potential to enhance collaborative practice and care, and their role in helping students achieve outcomes linked to IPL. A key challenge appears to be whether IPL is "worth the struggle," which emphasises the need for strong leadership in order to align pedagogical approaches in education and practice that strive to achieve agreed outcomes

In 1972 Norwegian health and educational authorities emphasized the importance of interprofessional collaboration in health care and the need to prepare students to work across boundaries. In 1995 the Norwegian government recommended a common core in curricula for undergraduate health and social educational programmes in all university colleges throughout the country in the belief that this would improve collaborative practice and deliver more effective and efficient health care. It provided no additional resources and left the colleges to exercise their discretion regarding the form that implementation should take. All adopted the common core. Some introduced it as uniprofessional learning, others jointly for all or some of their relevant programmes. Findings to be presented in this paper will compare perceptions of interprofessionalism between four cohorts of health care students at Oslo University College before and after the introduction of the common core in 2003. A questionnaire designed to elicit perceptions of "interprofessionalism" was administered to these four groups. Responses were analysed using SPSS by means of cross-tabulations and one-way analysis. The results show, first, that students with a common core in the curricula valued interprofessionalism more highly than did those without and, second, that students with the common core taught together valued interprofessionalism more highly than those where it was taught separately.

Background: The Norwegian government has indicated that health and social studies should emphasize interprofessional collaborative learning (IPL), especially in clinical placements. Through IPL, students have the opportunity to gain insight into other professional responsibilities and minimize negative stereotypes. This might improve collaboration across professional boundaries. Professionals with collaborative competence might solve complex health problems, and thus improve the quality of healthcare. The objectives of this article are to investigate the IPL experiences nursing students acquire through shadowing practice with different professionals in home care.

Undertaking research for a higher degree can be lonely unless and until, as we did, you form a self-help group. We had got to know each other at The Nordic Interprofessional Network (Nipnet) conferences where we had discovered that we were each in the early stages of licentiate or doctoral studies into aspects of interprofessional learning or working. Brief oneto-one exchanges paved the way for a longer group discussion when one of us invited the others to her summer cottage to learn more about each other's projects. So productive was the meeting that we met again every six to twelve months until four years later when all of us had successfully defended our theses. We invited Professor Hugh Barr, who was already supervising one of us at Bergen University and had been our guest, to be our mentor. Enjoying one last glimpse of the Geiranger Fjord through the mountains, we named ourselves the Glimpse Group, a metaphor that was to prove apt.Three of us were from Norway and one from Sweden from four different professions, preferring different theoretical perspectives and employing different research methods.Each workshop was planned in advance during an hour-long teleconference. We each then circulated a paper on the matters that we wanted to discuss, to be read in advance and then presented at the workshop as part of a report on progress since we last met. Help, however challenging, was invariably forthcoming in an atmosphere that was as stimulating as it was supportive.Discussions focused on theoretical and methodological issues, and the research and publication process, within the context of our growing understanding of interprofessional learning and working informed by external perspectives introduced by Hugh Barr.Venues for the workshops included our summer cottages, where we bonded as we prepared meals together and enjoyed wonderful walks. Discussions became more relaxed, more reflective and more personal. Other meetings were in hotel bedrooms before, during or after interprofessional conferences.

Interprofessional collaborative learning (IPL) is a requirement in health and social education, primary in student placements. This study explored IPL as shadowing with seven participants at a department of physical medicine and rehabilitation in a hospital. Seven participants were divided into two groups (n=3; n=4) when caring for two patients. Both groups wrote a rehabilitation plan together with the patients. In a submitted template, the students reflected on roles and responsibilities of health care professionals. To examine how the informants expressed their experiences of IPL, focus group interviews were conducted with each group and transcribed. The focus group transcripts, together with submitted templates, were then analysed using Giorgis' model of content analysis. All informants expressed that IPL led to acquired knowledge about each other's responsibilities in healthcare. Participants were aware of differences and similarities between their responsibilities. They reported that leadership and communication are prerequisites for collaborative practice.