Interprofessional educator ambassadors: An empirical study of motivation and added value

Abstract

Background: Interprofessional education (IPE) is being led by a driving force of teaches who advocate for the importance of this learning within health and social care professional curriculum. Many of these leaders have additional uni professional teaching responsibilities. Aims: This study aimed to explore the impact of leading an IPE curriculum on teachers, who were at the forefront of establishing a new IPE curriculum in the east midlands, UK. Methods: The prospective study used the principles of grounded theory to analyse the educator's experiences. The study included teachers who work from academic university posts and those who teach from within practice. These IPE leaders were identified through their involvement in the design and delivery of the local IPE initiatives. They were invited to share their experiences at either a mixed-discipline focus group, a one-to-one interview or by completing a postal/e questionnaire. During analysis the views from each data set were triangulated. Results: A total of 58 educators shared their experiences. All benefitted from being part of the planning and teaching teams. They were driven by a strong belief that IPE had the potential to improve patient care and that future healthcare practice would remain team based. Engagement had brought additional benefits to their teaching and career development in particular through forming new relationships with colleagues from other caring professions. They were concerned about educators teaching interprofessional student groups with little prior experience of IPE. Conclusion: The data suggest educators who take on a leading developmental role in designing and delivering an interprofessional curriculum benefit personally and professionally through working relationships with colleagues in other professions and through teaching wider networks of students. These new insights strengthen personal practice and research and in turn have the potential to influence and improve the quality of faculty teaching.

Faculty Development for Interprofessional Education and Practice

“…Our experience, supported by the literature (Anderson & Thorpe 2010;Carpenter & Hewstone 1996;Hean et al 2006), is that there are some common issues within interprofessional learning groups. These include what students feel during the IPE experience, such as negative stereotyping, and may depend on how well students are prepared for the difference of IPL to uniprofessional learning and the perceived relevance of the session and how it relates to practice (Freeth et al 2005).…”

“…IPE facilitation is a complex skill; it cannot be assumed that an experienced educator, from practice or academia, will seamlessly become a skilled IPE Facilitator (Anderson & Thorpe 2010;Anderson et al 2011;Hammick 1998;Howkins & Bray 2008). Our experience is that IPE facilitators need preparation and development for their role.…”

Health and social care professionals’ attitudes to interprofessional working and interprofessional education: A literature review

“…Three of the studies included staff from both a healthcare and academic setting, but representation of different professional groups was unclear in some studies (Anderson et al, 2009;Anderson & Thorpe, 2010;Baker et al, 2011;Colyer, 2008). Without consideration for the different teaching contexts, it was difficult to identify barriers and enablers to IPW and IPE that may have been specific to each of these contexts or to generalise.…”

“…Without consideration for the different teaching contexts, it was difficult to identify barriers and enablers to IPW and IPE that may have been specific to each of these contexts or to generalise. For many of the studies, sample demographics, were unspecified, which made it difficult to identify the range of characteristics within the sample groups (Anderson et al, 2009;Anderson & Thorpe, 2010;Baxter & Brumfit, 2008;Gibbon et al, 2002;Lindbland et al, 2006;Reeves & Lewin, 2004;Suter et al, 2009;Wittenberg-Lyles et al, 2010). The studies that were successful in recruiting large samples of staff from a mixture of different mixed professional groups primarily used quantitative methods to collect data (Braithwaite et al, 2012;Chang et al, 2009;Pollard & Miers, 2008;Reid et al, 2006).…”

“…The studies reviewed used a variety of research designs but the most effective design to gain in-depth insight into staff attitudes and an understanding of the challenges in healthcare settings was a mixed method approach (Anderson et al, 2009;Anderson & Thorpe, 2010;Baxter & Brumfit, 2008;Lingard et al, 2012;McCray, 2003;Reeves & Lewin, 2004;Robben et al, 2012;Wittenberg-Lyles et al, 2010). Questionnaires provided data for statistical analysis, which was valuable in measuring influences on attitudes, such as professional background.…”