Digital stories about Interprofessional Education and Practice
Stories help people make sense of experiences – their own and others. They can be a particularly beneficial way for participants to process difficult, confusing or painful experiences, and to share those experiences with others.
CAIPE members have, over the years, made frequent use of the 'Patient Voices' extensive collection of digital stories for their own work in promoting and teaching interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional collaborative practice. Although there are many digital stories addressing health and social care issues, there are few that specifically address and focus upon interprofessional education, interprofessional collaboration, or teamwork. CAIPE has now filled this gap with a collection of stories specifically relating to IPE.
Several CAIPE members attended a Patient Voices® workshop early in 2018. Each participant produced a rich and personal story of their journey to IPE and their continuing work in promoting the principles and values of IPE as a service user, practitioner, teacher, student or IPE leader. In addition to educational uses, the stories can be used for marketing and promoting CAIPE.
These digital stories are now available to all CAIPE members. Guidelines are provided for each story to facilitate their use, including a summary of each story, several key search words and three or four questions will stimulate reflection and discussion and help people use the stories for teaching, curriculum planning, facilitation and promotion of IPE and CAIPE.
It is important that CAIPE receives feedback about how these stories have been used, how they have been shared, what people learnt, what was helpful /unhelpful and suggestions for further development of this CAIPE resource. An evaluation form will be automatically attached for completion after using each story.
The digital stories were created in a Patient Voices® workshop funded by CAIPE. The stories are copyright Pilgrim Projects Limited and are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives licence; this means that the stories must not be changed or sold and they must be appropriately attributed.
New shoes: Amira Chaudhry
A story of transitional change, an insight into personal growth and professional development.
As a medical scientist, Amira has the knowledge and understanding of many clinical professionals; having worked in other industries, she also has knowledge and understanding of professions that are not directly related to health and social care. Her story raises questions and challenges of the importance of learning to work with, from and about people from all walks of life. To promote Interprofessional learning beyond the boundaries of social care.
- Education
- IPE Education
- IP Team work
- Transformation
- Professional
- Working across boundaries
- Journey
- Service
- Challenges
Offering: Charles Campion Smith
The story is about Charles and Sue’s work to support an interprofessional team to learn and teach others about the hitherto unfamiliar concept of palliative care and the practical aspects of its delivery in a low-resource African country (Tanzania).
Charles’ story illustrates the underlying values of Interprofessional education i.e. the underlying philosophy of IPE rather than the implementation of the IPE framework. Charles was able to use his knowledge of the principles of interprofessional education to cross cultural and geographical boundaries by respecting individuality, difference and diversity of the Tanzanian community.
- Interprofessional
- Learning
- Teamwork
- Palliative Care
- Africa / Tanzania
Taking time: Chris Sanders
Chris’s story broaches the issue of stress and burnout in the workplace.
The example highlighted here is brought from experience of working in general practice in the United Kingdom. The story includes reflections from delivering clinical interprofessional (IPE) teaching and how principles can be applied to improving teamwork in the primary care workforce. The story also references Mindfulness-based approaches to improving wellbeing.
- Inter professional education
- Stress
- Wellbeing
- Primary care
- Education
- Mindfulness
- Teamwork
- Collaborative practice
- General practice
- GP
- Physician
- Pharmacy student
- Medical student
Crying is not enough: Elizabeth Howkins
This personal and professional story links Elizabeth’s roles as carer and interprofessional teacher in her struggle to find help for her dying husband.
She describes the challenges of introducing an interprofessional education (IPE) programme with its failures and successes; her discovery of the UK Centre for the Advancement Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) and their guiding principles of IPE enabled her to produce a successful programme. Learning from the experience, Elizabeth went ont to research and publish work on IPE before giving back to CAIPE by becoming CAIPE chair.
- Interprofessional learning programmes
- Teaching /facilitating IPE
- Leadership
- Curriculum planning
- Resilience
- Team work
- Dealing with conflict,
- Principles of Interprofessional education
Me and the ocean: Laura Sherlock
In her story Laura traces the challenging swim she is having in the ocean, the ocean of recovery with Schizophrenia, and the strong currents of an interprofessional education (IPE) initiative in mental health recovery for healthcare students at King’s College London to which it has given rise.
- Mental health
- IPE challenges
- Barriers
- Service user involvement
- Teamwork
- Lived experience
- Recovery focus
Collective wisdom: Liz Anderson
Liz reflects on the start of her journey to become a champion for interprofessional education (IPE).
She describes how she was able to observe a medical, nursing and social work student bringing different perspectives to help address the needs of an older patient with comorbidities. The moment shines a light on learning “with from and about each other”. Liz shared these early appreciations with the UK Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) who supported her early work and with whom she still works as a CAIPE Fellow.
- Practice-based interprofessional learning
- Social work
- Nursing student
- Medical student
- Holistic patient-assessment
- Second-order reflection
- Patient-centred care
- Listening
From discord to harmony: Richard Gray
Richard's digital story explores the parallels of learning and experience within two stories.
The first focuses on a challenging interprofessional teaching experience involving social work and medical students. The second focuses on Richard's experience of singing in a choir. The skills and power of keeping quiet and listening emerge from each and their importance is emphasised.
- Facilitating IPE
- Dealing with conflict
- The skill of listening
- Patient Centredness
The rhythm: Susanne Lindqvist
Susanne’s story illustrates the rhythm of learning and working together.
In order to survive and thrive you need to engage with this rhythm. Care for your team members and together you can achieve so much! When the tune changes, listen to it, be open-minded and try to learn from it.
- Learning and working
- Team
- Leadership
- Resilience
- Motivation
- Sustainability
- Collaborative practice
- Interprofessional learning
- Interprofessional practice
- CAIPE
And on the fifth day... : Emily Audet
Emily is called to an acutely unwell patient and finds herself in a position of leadership for the first time as an FY1 doctor.
She looks to the ward team for support and advice, together they work to stabilise the patient. Emily reflects on her passion for team working and experiences that have helped her to develop her team-working skills. Emily’s story focuses on the transition period from pre- to post-qualifying and the importance of collaborative working.
- Team-work
- Leadership
- Communication
- Collaborative practice
- Support
- Clinical care
- Transition period
Digital Resources
The Royal Society of Medicine: The NHS at 70
Podcast series: Episodes 1-3: The Founding Principles of the NHS
To mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS a new podcast series has been launched, RSM The NHS at 70. Journalist Sue Saville interviews some of the most influential names in healthcare, in discussion about the challenges faced for the NHS in the future.
New episodes from this series will be released over the next 10 weeks, with key guest speakers including Prof Atul Gawande, Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard, Prof Chris Ham, Chief Exec, King’s Fund, Prof Terence Stephenson of the GMC and the RSM President Prof Sir Simon Wessely.
In the first episode, Lord David Owen, politician, former health minister, foreign secretary and physician, discusses how far we have strayed from the founding principles of the NHS, what went wrong and how we can get back on track.
Episode 1 - The Founding Principles of the NHS . Listen now
Episode 2 - Is the NHS the best Healthcare System in the World? Listen now.
Episode 3 - An American Tells Us What Not to Do. Listen now
Care Opinion
Care Opinion is a non-profit feedback platform which enables people to share feedback about health and social care services across the UK. Our service is also provided in Ireland and Australia. Since 2005 we have pioneered a safe, simple and transparent approach to hearing and learning from people’s experiences of the health and care services they rely on.
At www.careopinion.org.uk you will find over 300,000 experiences of care. In the UK we work with 600 health and social care organisations and are visited by 100,000 people each week. Almost 9,000 healthcare staff in the UK are using Care Opinion to hear and respond to people’s experiences, resolving issues, restoring relationships and improving services as they go.
These open, online conversations create a rich and unique resource for teaching health and care professionals of all kinds. The stories are searchable in a myriad ways and many provide deep insight into key issues in health/care such as patient safety, patient experience, quality improvement, communication, compassion – and, of course, the roles and contributions of a wide range of professionals.
One interprofessional education module leader wrote: “The Care Opinion site breathed new life into the module. It is very hard to teach IPE, and almost impossible to find case studies which students from all professions can identify with. The Care Opinion site gave us this.”
Stories on Care Opinion are freely accessible and can be used by anyone for education and research. If you would like to know about the additional online services Care Opinion provides for educators, make contact via www.careopinion.org.uk/contact.