Challenges of Providing Interdisciplinary Mental Health Education

SUMMARY

Recommendations and implications of the Pew Health Professions Commission's fourth and final report emphasized the importance of developing interdisciplinary competencies for health professionals (Bellack & O'Neil, 2000). Headrick and Moore (1999) reported to the Association of Academic Health Centers that interprofessional collaboration has not been easy, in part, because most health professional faculty are products of individual, discipline specific models for education. This article provides a conceptual foundation for interdisciplinary health care education at the graduate level based on findings from an interdisciplinary course in child/family mental health at East Carolina University. Classroom challenges affecting interdisciplinary offerings and specific problems that preclude integration of medical students are addressed. The article offers strategies to create a positive interdisciplinary learning climate for pre-professional education. Evidenced-based medicine is discussed as a mechanism to remove discipline specific barriers.

KEYWORDS:

• Interdisciplinary education
• collaborative practice
• teaching methods
• classroom barriers
• evidence-based practice