Inter-professional Education

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Profile and Mission of the University

The mission of the university is "to train QOL (quality of life) supporters" and to help promote the QOL of care recipients. QOL supporters require cooperative skills for the purpose of enhancing close collaboration among medical and welfare professionals.
We educate students in eight kinds of professions related to health and welfare. Our school was designed to train specialists with advanced expertise who will closely collaborate with other health care and welfare professionals and has consequently provided "Inter-professional Education (IPE)". The following is a summary of the curriculum design and the "Inter-professional Seminar II" for fourth-year students.

Core Curriculum and Inter-professional Education

"Inter-professional Seminar I", held in the second semester of the second year, is designed to allow students to learn the importance of inter-professional activities. Other programs, which are part of the core curriculum, include nineteen mandatory and elective subjects for first- to fourth-year students of all departments. "Inter-professional Seminar II" for fourth-year students is designed to encourage students to learn the expertise and characteristics of other care professionals while developing their own specialized knowledge by creating assessment/support plans and experiencing simulated multidisciplinary care. Through these courses, the students will acquire the basic collaborative skills necessary to provide support and care.

Implementation of the Inter-professional Seminar II

In 2004 and 2005, the seminar was held under the theme: "Support for the disabled in the community". In 2006, we introduced case studies of ALS patients based on scenarios. After watching the video of documentary programs, students from multidisciplinary areas held discussions.
In 2007, 90 students and 19 instructors from six departments participated in the seminar using the examples of six disease models (four types).
In 2008, the Inter-professional Seminar II was adopted as a regular selective subject, under the guidance of 21 instructors, 75 students in 10 groups.
We also successfully introduced some new approaches, including a simulation study of "community support for stroke patients" and discussions on the web (e. g., opinion exchange with the President of Onomichi Medical Association, Hiroshima). Significant findings were obtained by studying the efforts of Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture, which is known for its advanced approaches in such areas as community networks between health care and welfare professionals.
In 2009, we tried a totally new way of implementing the Interprofessional Seminar. In August, Dr. Helena Low, who is the vice president of Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education of the UK, was invited to participate in a three-day Student Inter-professional Seminar for 50 students and 30 staff from seven universities in Niigata Prefecture. This was the first time that the universities had collaborated in this way. Having delivered the keynote presentation, Dr. Low took part in the event as an observer, advisor and facilitator over the three days.
The theme was "IPE in the Community Health and Social Care" The focus of the seminar was to introduce IPE to both students and staff and to give them understanding of inter-professional learning and working, using a community health and social care model. They were also given the opportunity to experience working together using a case study approach. Eight different professions were represented and students were divided into nine groups, each facilitated by a teacher from one of the seven universities.
On the second day, each group visited a community hospital or clinic and a number of patients in their homes or in hospital, one of whom was their "case study" and so they were able to interview the patient and professionals involved in the care. Dr. Low joined one group visiting the rural mountainous area. The third day was spent putting together a presentation of the patient and the care they received and presenting it to the larger group. This reflected the enormous amount of learning that had been achieved, Throughout the three days, inter-professional aspects and issues were highlighted. Immediate feedback was very positive and these were reinforced by the later analyses of the written evaluations. The students and staff recognized the importance of learning together and recognized it as "an effective method of learning how to work in teams".

Evaluation of the 2009 Inter-university Inter-professional Student Seminar

We conducted a questionnaire on 45 students to evaluate the seminar by pre-survey and post-survey, using t-tests. An example of the question asked was "Can you explain your specialty?" The questionnaire also asked their understanding of subjects that other group members were working on. Since the seminar understanding of research subjects in which both they and other groups of students were involved and increased students awareness of their future professions.

Future Perspectives for 2010 and Beyond

Each year the university has over 650 students. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain case examples from approximately 100 groups. However, we are determined to make further efforts to develop an inter-professional education system, which employs simulation examples, based on information and communication technologies (ICT), for medical and welfare students.