‘There’s something special about my profession’: exploring interprofessional assessment

Julie Laxton, Jill Edwards, Janet Holt, Helen Nicholson

Abstract for Association for the Study of Medical Education Conference,

Edinburgh, 13th – 15th July 2011.

Interprofessional working across professions in health and social care requires collaboration, understanding of common purpose, pooling of knowledge and expertise and facilitation of joint decisions based on shared professional perspectives (Barrett & Keeping 2005).

If professional identity is important to the success or failure of interprofessional working then it is reasonable to assume it to also be of significance in interprofessional assessment. Despite policy drivers for interprofessional learning (DH 2007) professional culture and professional identity have been found to be compromised by this approach (Colyer 2004). But there is little evidence in the literature on the impact of professional identity on interprofessional assessment.

The ALPS-CETL (Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) programme mapped common competences of communication, teamworking and ethical practice (Holt et al 2010) and this study was undertaken in order to further understand what they mean to 8 health and social care professions.

The aim of this qualitative study is to explore what practitioners understand communication, team working and ethical practice to mean in their profession.

A purposeful sample of 19 practice based assessors was recruited from medicine and 7 other health and social care professions (audiology, clinical physiology, dentistry, diagnostic radiography, midwifery, nursing and social work). Diversity was sought across gender and their experience in assessing students in practice. Semi-structured interviews were used for data collection and analysed using a modified framework approach.

Preliminary findings found that across the 8 professions, communication and teamworking were understood by practitioners in a similar way and there was little difference in how these competences might be assessed across professions. However, there was some doubt when assessors were unsure of the exact role of some professions. Whilst commonalities were identified in ethical practice there was much less confidence as to its possible assessment within and across professions. Professionals were keen to maintain the distinctiveness of their profession, but recognised the importance of working together for the best outcome of the patient.

This study has identified some barriers and facilitators to interprofessional assessment across these 8 professions and the importance of taking professional identity into account in order to progress interprofessional assessment of practice.

References:

Barrett G. and Keeping C (2005) The processes required for effective interprofessional working.  In G Barrett, D Sellman and J Thomas (eds), Interprofessional working in Health and Social Care. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Colyer, H. M  (2004) The Construction and Development of Health Professionals; where will it end?  Journal of Advanced Nursing. 48 (4), 406-412

Department of Health (2007) Creating an interprofessional workforce: An education and training framework for health and social care, London: DoH.

Holt J, Coates C, Cotterill D, Eastburn S, Laxton J, Mistry H, Young C (2010) Identifying common competences in health and social care: An example of multiinstitutional and interprofessional working. Nurse Education Today, 30 (3), 264–270. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2009.09.006