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This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Interdisciplinary Health Team Care Conference, which took place September 21-23, 1989 at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  It is reproduced here with the permission of the authors.

Health professionals from different disciplines are trained to perceive situations in unique ways (Quails and Czirr, 1988). While differences in perceptions among health professionals can add depth to patient care, those differences can also impede interdisciplinary efforts (Banta and Fox, 1972; Ducanis and Golin, 1979). One goal of team training is to improve mutual understanding of the perceptions among diverse health professions so professionals can more easily engage in interdisciplinary problem solving.

The intent of this study is to describe the perceptions that a cadre of health professions trainees (all with prior experience) had toward selected other professions. More specifically, we were interested in whether trainees had more favorable perceptions of physical therapists and physicians after their practicum experience than before that experience. We were also interested in the second level perceptions of how they thought physicians and physical therapists viewed themselves. In addition, we questioned whether social workers and nurses, who are trained in a holistic approach to patient care would differ, either before or after their experience, in their perceptions toward medicine (the third member of the core team). Finally, we were interested in whether the perceptions of medicine by the subgroup of nursing and social work trainees who most often function as case managers or team coordinators, would differ from pre- to post-experience.