Twenty years experiences of interprofessional education in Linkoping--ground-breaking and sustainable.

Full Abstract

A pioneering and ground-breaking effort to organize interprofessional education (IPE) was initiated in 1986 at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Linkoping University in Sweden. The so-called "Linkoping IPE model" has now yielded practical experience and development of curricula for over 20 years. The basic idea of this model is that it is favorable for the development of students' own professional identity to meet other health and social professions already into their undergraduate studies. Interprofessional learning is a process over time that requires several integrated stages to gain interprofessional competence, i.e., the skills required to work together interprofessionally in practice. We believe that defined IPE modules early in the curriculum combined with student-training ward placement as the final module is an encouraging example of how to implement undergraduate IPE among health science students. It is strengthened by problem based learning (PBL) in small groups and student-centered learning. Based on these experiences, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on how to implement and achieve the aims of IPE and to keep it sustainable. It is not a description of "how to do it" but rather a summarizing of our experiences for successful performance of IPE. The article presents how the Linkoping model was developed, the outcomes, experiences and some outlines for future challenges.

Author information

Author/s: Wilhelmsson, Margaretha (M); Pelling, Staffan (S); Ludvigsson, Johnny (J); Hammar, Mats (M); Dahlgren, Lars-Owe (LO); Faresjo, Tomas (T);

Affiliation: Unit of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linkoping University, Sweden. margaretha.wilhelmsson(-atsign-)isv.liu.se

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of interprofessional care (J Interprof Care), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Mar; vol 23 (issue 2) : pp 121-33

Dates: Created 2009/03/13; Completed 2009/06/25;

PMID: 19225972, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/25/2009, IMS Date: 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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