Maori health issues explored in an interprofessional learning context

Abstract

In New Zealand there is emphasis on improving access to primary healthcare, particularly for high health need populations such as Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Critical to the development of the primary healthcare environment is building healthcare teams and better utilising health practitioners. This article reports on an interprofessional educational initiative where medical, nursing and pharmacy undergraduates learnt together in order to understand Maori health issues, how these are addressed by health services and also appreciate the contribution of different health professionals within the healthcare team. The educational initiative is described and interprofessional learning issues are explored across the different curricula structures of medicine, nursing and pharmacy.

Evaluating an undergraduate interprofessional education session for medical and pharmacy undergraduates on therapeutics and prescribing: the medical student perspective

“…Students also reported that interacting with a pharmacy student, and future MDT member, was a valuable experience, a finding also reported elsewhere 20,23…”

“…Curran et al reported a significant and continual improvement in attitudes toward teamwork in medical students following IPE 10. Knowledge change, related to the IPE topic, was another reported positive outcome, but few studies have demonstrated a significant increase in this outcome 20–22. Taylor et al reported findings following an interactive pediatrics prescribing workshop where medical student confidence in prescribing increased in both IP and uniprofessional groups but with no significant difference in knowledge of prescribing when the IP group was compared to the medic only group 21…”

Undergraduate inter-professional learning involving pharmacy, nursing and medical students: The Maori health week initiative

“…The majority of responses were positive toward learning with other health professional students and also about the overall experience of the week (Horsburgh & Lamdin, 2004). Students commented enthusiastically on the pooling of different knowledge, meeting new people and interacting with peers they would work with in the future.…”

“…The low reliability (Crohnbach's alpha 0.13) of the evaluation of knowledge about the Treaty of Waitangi provided little information about student learning, and did not explore in-depth understanding (Horsburgh & Lamdin, 2004). In terms of attitude, most students supported the role of Maori in the provision of healthcare.…”

“…This was repeated in the post-test, which also included a survey of attitudes to learning with other health professional students (Horsburgh & Lamdin, 2004).…”