Learning to work in the health care team

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Abstract
Initial physiotherapy education was traditionally conducted in the isolation of professional confines within National Health Service Schools of Physiotherapy. There is some evidence to suggest that narrow and rigid attitudes and ways of professional thinking may be the result of learning in isolation. Such behaviours compromise the development of team skills and interdisciplinary perspectives. Promotion of an all-graduate physiotherapy profession resulted in the very rapid move of courses into the higher education sector. In 1992 all students embarking on physiotherapy education were enrolled on undergraduate programmes, many of which are conducted in multi-faculty environments. Therefore opportunities now exist for physiotherapy students to learn with other health care professional student groups and with those studying a variety of related single honours subjects. This paper outlines how one physiotherapy department in higher education has used such opportunities in an attempt to counter the problems of isolationism in education, to prepare students for interdisciplinary practice and to encourage the development of team skills. The following aspects of course development are proposed as essential considerations: an appropriate educational philosophy to underpin the approach; early and sustained interdisciplinary input; the setting of appropriate objectives in affective and skill domains; selection of course content, college-based and clinical learning opportunities that promote interdisciplinarity. Evaluation data are presented in support of the approach.