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BACKGROUND:

Falls are a common and important clinical problem, and with ageing populations worldwide it is important for health care professionals to learn about falls management. The multidisciplinary nature of falls teams also provides an ideal opportunity for interprofessional collaboration in teaching.

CONTEXT:

In this article, we describe a pilot multidisciplinary falls assessment and prevention workshop for second-year medical students at a London medical school.

INNOVATION AND IMPLICATIONS:

OBJECTIVES:

To explore final-year physiotherapy students' perceptions and experiences of interprofessional learning in the university and placement setting.

STUDY DESIGN:

Focus group and mixed qualitative and quantitative questionnaire.

SETTING:

Coventry University.

PARTICIPANTS:

Third-year physiotherapy students at Coventry University.

METHODS:

The provision of high-quality education and training that is responsive, relevant, accessible and evidence based is critical if the vision for quality mental health services presented in recent policy initiatives in Ireland is to be fulfilled. This paper reports the findings related to pedagogical approaches and quality assurance mechanisms utilized within mental health education. The study involved canvassing all Higher Education Institutions in Ireland. A total of 227 courses in 31 educational institutes were identified and 149 questionnaires were returned from 129 Course Coordinators.

This article reports our experience of developing half-day sessions of interprofessional simulation for pre-qualifying students from medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, radiography and operating department practice. One hundred and ninety-one students participated in a session. A questionnaire consisting of Likert type, visual analog and open comment questions explored their perceptions of the sessions as a learning experience, their attitudes toward interprofessional learning and the factors important for good patient care either after, or before and after, the session, as appropriate.

The study aims to evaluate an interprofessional community-based learning event, focussing on disability. The learning opportunity was based on the Leicester Model of Interprofessional Education, organised around the experiences and perceptions of service users and their carers. Programme participants were drawn from medicine and social work education in Leicester, UK, bringing together diverse traditions in the care of people with disabilities.

A significant number of patients requiring critical care are now being managed outside of critical care facilities. There is evidence that staff looking after these patients lack the necessary knowledge and skills to care for them safely, and that effective pre-registration education can play a significant role in addressing these shortfalls in nurses' knowledge and skills.

BACKGROUND: Ethical analysis frameworks can help to identify the ethical dimensions to clinical care and provide a method for justifying clinical decisions. Published frameworks, however, have some limitations to easy, practical use.

AIMS: The aim was to identify a comprehensive yet easy-to-use framework that clarifies ethical decision-making, suitable for use by medical learners and clinical educators.

CONTEXT:

Safe clinical practice is inextricably linked to team-working. Delivering patient safety education interprofessionally heightens students' awareness of the importance of effective team-working for safe care and care delivery.

METHODS:

We conducted a comparative study using mixed-method analysis among medical students learning about patient safety, either uni- or interprofessionally, towards the end of their training. Emphasis is placed on the detailed analysis of qualitative data relating to student perceptions of the event before and afterwards.