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Through a Prism: Perspectives on a Cross-Professions Skill Set

This volume contains papers presented at the 11th Congress of Health Professions Educators, Through a Prism: Perspectives on a Cross-Professions Skill Set, which elevated the exchange of ideas on whether some competencies are essential for all health professionals, regardless of their discipline or practice venue. While courses on varied topics are routinely taught to students mixed across professions, extensive discussion of the personal and professional skills that cut across the disciplines is rare.
Dennis O’Leary addressed how a world of rapid systems change is driving the need for a cross-professions skill set. Lester Crawford shared progress on food security in the wake of bioterrorism and Mad Cow disease. Pamela Mitchell examined a cross-professions skill set in the context of patient safety. Mohammad Akhter, Frank Catalanotto, Leyla Erk McCurdy, and William Wiese shared thoughts on what students and practitioners should know about global health, dentistry, environmental health, and public health, respectively. Jon Rasmussen addressed pharmacy’s evolving role. In sharing a medical school model for integrating the social and behavioral sciences, Jason Satterfield explained how awareness of sociocultural issues affected his students and how such a curricular model might be expanded to other health professions schools. In sum, these papers offer guidance for others to assess how expanded skill sets might be addressed and implemented on their own campuses, with an eye ultimately toward enhanced health status for all.
Since 1993, the Association of Academic Health Centers (AHC) has sponsored the Congress of Health Professions Educators, now an annual gathering that advances a collaborative vision for the future of health professions education. Convening faculty and administrators from across the spectrum of health professions schools and from all levels of the academic health centers (from junior faculty to deans to the CEO), each congress offers a rare opportunity for approximately 100 attendees to examine in depth issues of import in an increasingly interprofessional, team-oriented health care environment. The 11th Congress of Health Professions Educators was a program of the Center for Interprofessional, Community-based Learning (CICL), which is dedicated to strengthening and institutionalizing interdisciplinary, community-based learning.
The AHC wishes to express its sincere gratitude to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for its generous support of the 11th Congress of Health Professions Educators. We also thank Ann Thompson for her editorial skill and Richard Fletcher for his design.

© 2005 Association of Academic Health Centers. Reproduced here with permission.