Interprofessional Education

Curriculum Requirements

Students in the Faculties of Dentistry, Health and Medicine are required to participate in interprofessional health education activities. These activities, together with specific program requirements, are currently evolving and in transition and are integrated into the curricula of individual programs. Participation is mandatory. The objective of interprofessional education includes developing:

  • knowledge and understanding of, and respect for, the expertise, roles and values of other health and human service professionals.
  • understanding the concept and practice of patient/client/family-centred care.
  • effective communication, teamwork and leadership skills applied in interprofessional contexts.
  • positive attitudes related to the value of collaboration and teamwork in health and human service contexts.
  • an understanding, from a multi-disciplinary perspective, of the Canadian health and social systems, the legal and regulatory foundation of professional practice, how health and human service institutions are organized and operate, and how different health and human service professions contribute to the systems and institutions.

Faculty of Health

  • As described in the University Calendar, by the end of their program of study, students in all undergraduate programs and all entry-to-practice graduate programs in the Faculty of Health Professions are required to have completed a total number of different, meaningful and relevant interprofessional collaborative learning experiences (as determined and approved by each student's School/College) equal to two times the number of years or part years of study in the program.
  • At least one of these experiences will be in a practice setting.
  • The experiences are to include interactions with undergraduate and/or graduate students from a total of at least four different professions with which there are natural affinities or linkages in the professional environment, and these professions will be primarily from outside the student's home School/College in the case of Schools with multiple professions.
  • It is the student's School that determines what counts as an acceptable experience.
  • The interprofessional experience requirement is implemented through a Calendar requirement that each student is to maintain registration in a 0-credit hour Faculty-based course, IPHE 4900 or IPHE 5900 for undergraduate and graduate students respectively. This course functions essentially as a shell course in which IPHE experiences are credited.  At the end of their program, students submit a journal or portfolio in which they record IPHE experiences as described by their School.
  • Successful completion of IPHE 4900 or IPHE 5900 with a grade of PASS is a requirement for graduation in all programs, and will be recognized further with the awarding of a special Certificate in Interprofessional Health Education to be presented by the Faculty of Health.

Faculty of Dentistry

“The overall goal of interprofessional education and collaborative practice is to provide health system users with improved health outcomes. For this reason, a clear understanding of the characteristics of the ideal collaborative practitioner is required to inform curriculum and professional development for interprofessional education, and enlighten professional practice for interprofessional collaboration.”

(Appendix I, CIHC National Interprofessional Competency Framework, 2010)

Like all health professions students, dentistry and dental hygiene students are required to fulfill six nationally mandated interprofessional/collaborative competencies:

  1. Interprofessional communication - Learners/practitioners from different professions communicate with each other in a collaborative, responsive, and responsible manner.
  2. Patient/client/family/community-centred care - Learners/practitioners seek out, integrate and value, as a partner, the input and the engagement of the patient/client/family/community in designing and implementing care/services.
  3. Role clarification - Learners/practitioners understand their own role and the roles of those in other professions, and use this knowledge appropriately to establish and achieve patient/client/family and community goals.
  4. Team functioning - Learners/practitioners understand the principles of teamwork dynamics and group/team processes to enable effective interprofessional collaboration.
  5. Collaborative leadership - Learners/practitioners understand and can apply leadership principles that support a collaborative practice model.
  6. Interprofessional conflict resolution - Learners/practitioners actively engage self and others, including the client/patient/family, in positively and constructively addressing disagreements as they arise. To support interprofessional collaborative practice, team members consistently address conflict in a constructive manner.

Dentistry and dental hygiene students participate in the following mandatory interprofessional activities that address collaborative outcomes:

For more details, contact:

    Cynthia Andrews
    Coordinator, Interprofessional Education
    (902) 494-1244
    cynthia.andrews@dal.ca

Faculty of Medicine

During each year of their four-year undergraduate medical education program, learners will be required to participate in IPE activities.  In each pre-clerkship year (year 1 and 2), students are required to complete two embedded (re: pre-scheduled) activities and one elective activity, typically a mini-course. In year 3 clerkship there are multiple embedded interprofessional learning activities during several clinical rotations. During the final year of the medical program, all students are required to participate in an interprofessional educational elective, in a collaborative setting.

Engagement and participation with other health professional students and practitioners in both clinical and academic environments ensures that by the end of their program, learners will be able to:

  1. Through role clarification, describe their own role and the role of other health care professionals, taking into account similarities and differences between different health professions.
  2. Understand and apply the principles of conflict resolution amongst health professionals and understand how it impacts patient care.
  3. Demonstrate and understand the principles of collaborative leadership as it relates to health care teams in provision of patient care.
  4. As a health care team, keep the patient/family/community at the center of health care by involving them in the goals of care and the decision making process that directs this care and provision of services.
  5. Understand the importance of interprofessional communication in a health care team, and how it can positively or negatively impact patient care.
  6. Describe the importance of team functioning and how collaboration can improve health care teams and team dynamics.
  7. Engage in collaborative learning that will continuously improve personal practice and contribute to collective improvements in practice.
These objectives link/map to the CACMS accreditation requirements for IPE, the LCME standards for IPE, and the CanMeds 2015 Competencies for residency ready learners.

There are a menu of activities that students may choose from to satisfy this elective requirement; these include the IPE mini-courses, certain conferences, as well as interprofessional simulation activities.

Dr. Anuradha Mishra
Assistant Dean, Skilled Clinician and Interprofessional Education
ugmeipe@dal.ca