Interprofessionality within health care educations: ideology and practice
Hanne Hagland - Ph.D.fellow
Advisor:
Second advisor:
Professor Jens-Christian Smeby
Project period:
2006 – 2010
This project is funded by Oslo University College
Summary:
The main purpose of this project is to explore how occupational-, physiotherapy-, medical- and nursing students become involved in, and perceive interaction across professional boundaries during their vocational placements. Today’s treatment and patient care often involves interactions between several professions. At the same time professions are criticized for their shortcomings in cooperation. Interprofessionality is often taken for granted in interprofessional interaction, and this project will question interprofessionality as a point of departure for actions taken. This empirical qualitative research project will focus on how interaction across professional boundaries takes place and are learnt in hospital wards where students have vocational placements. Characteristics of such interactions in relation to professional affiliation and interprofessionality, which become visible in participation, language use and action patterns will be considered. Research data will be collected through fieldwork, interviews of twelve students and through focus groups with their clinical supervisors.
Normatively interprofessionality implies that several professions develop ways of working that provide coherent and integrated treatment to meet patient needs. This could mean an increase in their joint fields, reducing both the profession’s domain and control of applying and development of knowledge. This represents a contrast to theoretical perspectives on professions emphasizing professions’ competition for and mutual division of jurisdictions. At the same time, interaction across professional boundaries may be perceived as supporting professional autonomy and function when facing empowered patients, demands with regard to tailored services and the handling of new and complex knowledge.
Vocational placements are of central importance in students’ development both of professional actions and basis of actions taken. Furthermore, students will be confronted with expectations from patients, from their own/others’ professions, from the hospital and with political requirements. Tension between the expectations of the student and their own profession may arise in the interaction across professional boundaries and in their understanding of such interactions. One question is how students’ experiences and their conception of interaction across professional boundaries may contribute in development of their professional affiliation and notions of their own/others’/joint involvement, responsibility, tasks and ways of carrying these out.