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CONTEXT: The growing emphasis on teamwork within the National Health Service (NHS) has made it a priority to understand how health care teams learn together and cope with change.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore how collective learning and change happen in primary care teams and how the process varies across the disciplines of general medical practice, pharmacy and dentistry.

METHODS: This study reports on qualitative data gathered from 10 primary care teams over 1 year, by means of observational visits and 38 semi-structured interviews.

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18989811

On entering higher education students become professionally socialized, and parallel with this, stereotyping takes place, students developing a more positive assessment of their own roles than those of other professions. This difference between the view of their own and other professions can contribute to creating cognitive and social boundaries between professions that hinder sharing of knowledge, which can result in poor cooperation.

This study investigates the experiences of staff and students involved in an identified Common Learning unit (module) named "Preparation for Practice". The unit was studied by those undertaking pre-registration undergraduate pathways in Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Diagnostic Radiography and Therapeutic Radiography at London South Bank University. The study comprised uni-professional, inter-professional and staff focus groups.

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19248326

Internationally, there are a number of universities at which medical and dental education programmes share common elements. There are no studies about the experiences of medical and dental students enrolled in different programmes who share significant amounts of learning and teaching.

METHODS:

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19085202

This report demonstrates the application of a competency model to the regulated and unregulated professions of medical radiation technology, social work, pharmacy, and psychology. The competency model is based on the CanMEDS framework and was originally applied to the professions of medicine, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and nursing in an earlier work. The framework identifies the core competencies common to learners in health care, which are professional (and health advocate), expert, scholar, manager, communicator, and collaborator.

BACKGROUND:

A gap exists between best evidence and best practice in intensive care units. The aim of this study was to investigate different aspects of intensive care nurses' and physicians' inter- and intraprofessional collaboration, with focus on factors associated with standardised weaning from mechanical ventilation.

METHODS:

A qualitative design was used for implementing research-based knowledge into multistage focus group discussions. Data were analysed by means of qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS:

This qualitative research paper describes a successful example of interprofessional education with family medicine residents (FMR) by a nurse practitioner (NP) colleague. The educational impact of the NP role in regard to smoking cessation counselling is revealed by the analysis of 16 semi-structured interviews using a phenomenological approach. The key themes depicted the NP as an educator and mentor, encourager and referral resource. Outcomes of improved knowledge, skills, and motivation towards providing smoking cessation counselling are described.