The School of Health Sciences (the School) of the Gunma University has a mandate to train and produce advanced and high quality health professionals. To enhance collaboration between health professionals and to overcome the fragmented nature of the specialized medicine, the School has developed the curriculums, based fundamentally on the holistic medicine and interprofessional work (IPW).
The major advantage of the curriculums lie in its training program, “a simulated interprofessional training”, where students work in group and undergo a series of activities, including group discussions, clinical training at facilities, general meetings, and reporting. This“teamwork training” is the core subject of the education. Its concept is first shared and discussed during the first year of the School, and training is participated in by the third-year students from all departments of the School. All academic staff help implement the training in cooperation with approximately twenty external health care facilities. The training is evaluated every year, and both students and academic staff evaluated it positively. This “teamwork training” has been in practice for nine years now.
This interprofessional education program, built on its extensive experience, will take into account rapid progress and changes in clinical practice, and mobilize external participation beyond the School. The planned activities are listed below;
- Networking with training facilities for information exchange and consultation through organizing joint conferences:
Debriefing meetings of the interprofessional clinical training have been held only within the School of Health Sciences. However, there is a proposal to organize joint conferences with the staff of training-support facilities from 2007. - A follow-up survey of graduates who took the interprofessional training program to assess the impact of the program
A systematic survey will be conducted with graduates to assess the extent by which graduates use interprofessional working skills and spirit in their working places. - IPE Networking with other universities
With a view to establishing an extensive interprofessional education network, we will communicate and collaborate with other universities which have similar programs. For instance, it is planned to organize seminars by inviting lecturers from such universities.
1. The simulated interprofessional training based on case scenarios
As mentioned above, students could not understand very well their specific roles in interprofessional work and were dissatisfied with the teamwork training program. Seemingly, they were embarrassed by the lack of opportunities to treat patients as specialists. It was difficult to allocate enough time for every student to practice due to the time constraints and the uncertainty of actual clinical settings. To overcome this difficulty, it was decided to introduce a modality of the “simulated interprofessional training based on case scenarios”. Through the simulation, students are expected to learn the roles and responsibilities of their professions.
2. The joint training with students from the School of Medicine
There is a plan that medical students would take part in the interprofessional training together with students of the School of Health Science. The Educational Affaires Committee of the School of Medicine will help stage the participation of medical students.