Educating for interprofessional collaboration: teaching about values.

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Social Care Studies
• Interprofessional Collaboration

Background:

• Effective interprofessional collaboration hinges on mutual understanding of diverse values and beliefs.
• Discrepancies in values impact responses to varied patient/client/user needs.
• Health and social care students need explicit knowledge of value systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a framework for teaching values to health and social care students.
• To emphasize the importance of understanding the genesis of professional values.
• To highlight the gap between professional and societal values.

Main Methods:

• Derived a conceptual framework from literature on democratic, multicultural, multifaith societies.
• Identified key educational concepts: tolerance, compromise, and education for dialogue.
• Advocated for formal knowledge of values and value systems.

Main Results:

• Students must grasp the meaning of values and their expression in various systems.
• Understanding the origin of one's professional values is crucial.
• Recognizing the divergence between professional and societal values is essential for practice.

Conclusions:

• Educating for professional pluralism is a critical task for educators.
• Tolerance, compromise, and dialogue are foundational for value-based education.
• Formal values education enhances students' ability to navigate diverse healthcare settings.