More than 170 students and 20 faculty members from Qatar University (QU) colleges of health sciences (CHS), medicine (CMED) and pharmacy (CPH) have participated in the interprofessional education (IPE) activities organised by QU Health IPE Committee (IPEC).
The event engaged students and faculty from various professions, including pharmacy, medicine, public health, nutrition and biomedical sciences. It aimed to introduce the concept of IPE to students and enable them to learn how to be part of a professional healthcare team and communicate in a collaborative and culturally sensitive manner, QU said in a statement.
The event’s programme featured a lecture on the concepts of IPE and its importance within a healthcare team by CPH assistant dean for Student Affairs and QU Health IPEC chair Dr Alla El-Awaisi. It also included an icebreaker game during which the students introduced themselves and competed against other teams in trying to identify the highest number of healthcare professionals, as well as a case-based discussion led by Dima Arafa, teaching assistant at the CHS Department of Public Health.
The discussion focused on a 52-year-old Qatari man with an eight-year history of hypertension and lactose intolerance.
They also discussed the importance of collaboration between various healthcare professionals to address patient health needs during the blockade.
Commenting on the IPE activities, QU vice-president for Medical and Health Sciences and CMED dean Dr Egon Toft said: “We are fortunate to be part of a well-established and comprehensive university with a considerably broad range of health-related programmes such as the award-winning, nationwide Interprofessional Education programme led by QU Health.”
CHS dean and Biomedical Research Centre director Prof Asma al-Thani said, “The purpose of healthcare education is to prepare students to become professionals who can competently deliver high-quality care in Qatar. Learning in the IPE context is an important element of preparation for working in multi-professional teams. All participants from all colleges benefited from the assimilation of IPE approaches within the pedagogical content.”
CPH dean Dr Mohamed Diab said, “Developing an interprofessional culture from early on in the healthcare student learning experience is vital to graduate collaborative practice-ready graduates. It was inspiring to see this large number of students and faculty with a high level of commitment and enthusiasm learning and working together in this very important event.”
Dr El-Awaisi noted, “This was an important activity to mark the launch of interprofessional education in all QU Health first-year healthcare programmes. More importantly, under the current blockade, healthcare professionals need to unite efforts together and work hand in hand to improve collaboration and the quality of care delivered to patients.”
First-year medical student Talal Alyafei added, “I learned that teamwork with different healthcare students is the best way to solve any case by sharing our perspectives and working interprofessionally to provide optimal patient care.”
Students working in teams at the IPE event.
