Depending on the needs of different patients, I got to spend time with the occupational therapist. I got to see different types of splints being made for patients and give my input for treatments of the upper extremity. I also got to participate in interactions with the recreational therapist in order to get different pieces of equipment for kids. One of the best experiences with this was getting an adapted bike for a patient who had been waiting for one for over a year.

My interprofessional experience at the IWK is one that will leave a lasting impact on my future career. I fully appreciated the sense of teamwork and was impressed by the fact that there did not seem to be any sort of hierarchy relative to different health professions. Everyone seemed to collaborate with each other in the best interests of the patients, and everyone was keen on sharing information and skills specific to their own profession. I hope that my professional experiences in the future are as diverse and as fun as the one I just had the chance to work with.

Working as part of the stroke team exposed me to interprofessional interactions on a daily basis. I also had the opportunity for several interprofessional activities throughout the duration of my placement. Aside from physiotherapy, other professions on the stroke team included an occupational therapist, nursing staff, a dietician, a speech language pathologist, and the attending physicians. We had bullet rounds at the beginning of each day and full rounds once a week, with a representative from each profession in attendance. I was able to contribute to these sessions about my patients and share their progress and limitations as well as actively listen to updates from each of the other team members.

Participating in these activities really gave me an appreciation for how important an interdisciplinary approach is to patient care. In order for the patient to receive the best care possible, all team members have to work together, share their findings and ideas so that all aspects of health are considered and addressed. Participating in rounds gave me the chance to see a multidisciplinary approach to health care in action. All team members must contribute to these sessions in order to get the whole picture regarding the patient’s health status. These experiences gave me the chance to practice my communication skills and helped give me confidence in my abilities. I was seen as part of the team and felt that my contributions to conversations were valued and I was not overlooked because I was only a student.

Having these interprofessional experiences in a practical setting are so valuable as it gives us a chance as students to practice our skills in a real world setting and gives us an idea of what it will be like to be a professional on the health care team when we begin our careers. I enjoy discovering the roles of other health care professionals and having a complete picture of the patient enables me to provide individualized PT care, taking into consideration all the dimensions of health. I will be able to build on these communication and teamwork skills during my final placements and carry them over to my future career.    

I was placed in the intensive care unit, a unit where most of the patients were quite deconditioned and/or on ventilators. During my time there, I worked closely with the ICU’s nurses almost every day to transfer, mobilize and suction the patients. Many of the nurses almost became like second clinical instructors, giving me tips on how to work more efficiently, educating me on all the different machines and just encouraging me in general. As a young student, having all that support around me really helped to improve my skills and helped me to become a more confident therapist.

As a future clinician, this placement made me appreciate that to give a patient the best possible care, it is essential that you work side by side with other health care professionals. It also made me realize that I should not be scared to ask for help or advice when I feel like I need it. Trying to do everything on your own is just not efficient and ultimately it is the patient that will suffer.

In my first placement in the Outpatient Department I was invited to participate in a student IPHE program run by the stroke unit. It involved a one-hour weekly group meeting of the students involved and two team leaders as facilitators. The group was made up of a nursing student, a dietary student, an SLP student, a pharmacy intern, and two physiotherapy students.

For the first three weeks, we were presented a case of a current inpatient who had suffered a recent stroke or had multiple chronic conditions. We discussed the case, noting important details and defining terms or the importance of certain measures that fell under our scope for the rest of the group. We would discuss which aspects of the case would involve more than one profession and how they would work together to assess or make use of that information. We determined what other information it would be good to have and how that would inform our treatment plan. We then developed a preliminary treatment plan that would span approximately a week. At the beginning of the next week we were provided an update on the patient and a description of the treatment that had been done. We then moved on to the new case for that week. For the last three weeks were worked with the same patient case each week (who some of us had a chance to actually work with and brought those experiences to the table), discussing the changes in their function, medications, treatment, and discharge plan. We developed a plan to progress treatment and reassessed goals. On the last day we presented this case to our preceptors, the head of the stroke team, and the leader of IPHE education for the hospital. The presentation was done using power point, with each of us discussing how our profession was involved with this patient throughout the treatment process from admission to discharge and what aspects of assessment and treatment we needed to collaborate on.

I learned a lot from this experience about what aspects of assessment and treatment were covered by a certain profession or more than one. I learned about the indications, interactions, and side effects of medications. I learned about the interactions between diet, swallowing, respiratory function, and seating position. As there was no occupational therapy student in the group and two physiotherapy students we attempted to cover both professions in the discussion. I had the opportunity to shadow an occupational therapist working with inpatients for a day during my placement and the patient from our case was one of the people we saw so I brought some of the occupational therapy perspective to the meetings. It was always fun to see how close our treatment plan and estimated progression matched up with what actually happened over the course of the week. It was also very interesting to interact with the patient we had been discussing and experience the difference between the picture you get from reading the case on paper and reality. This experience was amazing and I encourage them to continue this program at the hospital and through Dalhousie.