Not just another multi-professional course! Part 2: Nuts and bolts of designing a transformed curriculum for multi-professional learning

Abstract

Multi-professional education has traditionally aimed to develop health professionals who are able to collaborate effectively in comprehensive healthcare delivery. The respective professions learn about their differences in order to work together, rather than developing unity in their commitment to a shared vision of professionalism and service. In this, the second of two papers, the ‘nuts and bolts’ or practicalities of designing a transformed curriculum for a multi-professional course with a difference is described. Guidelines for the curriculum design process, which seeks to be innovative, grounded in theory and relevant to the learning of the students and the ultimately the health of the patients, include: valuing education; gaining buy-in; securing buy-out; defining of roles; seeking consensus; negotiating difference and expediting decisions. The phases of the design process are described, as well as the educational outcomes envisaged during the process. Reflections of the designers, in particular on what it means to be a multi-professional team, and a reconceptualization of multi-professional education are presented as challenges for educators of health professionals.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pat Mayers

PAT MAYERS is a senior lecturer in the Division of Nursing and Midwifery, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town. Her interests are in psychosocial support for health professionals in the workplace, in the context of HIV/AIDS care, multi-professional education, health and human rights and qualitative research methodologies.

Melanie Alperstein

MELANIE ALPERSTEIN is a senior lecturer responsible for curriculum development in the Education Development Unit, Faculty of Heath Sciences, having been seconded from the Centre for Higher Education Development, University of Cape Town.

Madeleine Duncan

MADELEINE DUNCAN is a senior lecturer in the Division of Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town. Her interests are in the area of poverty and disability, critical reasoning and adult education.

Lorna Olckers

LORNA OLCKERS is a lecturer in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town. She is convenor of the Health Science Faculty's multi-professional courses—Becoming a Professional and Becoming a Health Professional. Her interests are in multi-professional education, assessment, and in developing students into becoming reflective and empathic Health Professionals.

Trevor Gibbs

TREVOR GIBBS is a Professor in the Bute School of Medicine, University of St Andrews, Scotland. He previously held the position of Professor of Medical Education and Family Medicine at the Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain, and before that Director of Health Sciences Education at the University of Cape Town, where he was instrumental in changing the undergraduate medical curriculum. His interests lie in multi-professional education, diversity and widening access programmes and community-based education.