Professional equipoise: Getting beyond dominant discourses in an interprofessional team.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare education
• Interprofessional collaboration
• Discourse analysis

Background:

• US Department of Veterans Affairs established Centers of Excellence in 2011 to study patient-centered medical home training.
• Discourse analysis revealed pervasive, conflicting assumptions among professions regarding roles, responsibilities, and clinical truth.
• These differing discourses fostered unhelpful professional stereotypes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify traditional discourses of medicine, nurse practitioner, psychology, and pharmacy professions.
• To understand how these discourses contribute to stereotypes.
• To explore methods for mitigating discursive assumptions and fostering interprofessional appreciation.

Main Methods:

• Discourse analysis of four post-graduate professions: medicine, nurse practitioner, psychology, and pharmacy.
• Qualitative examination of assumptions about roles, responsibilities, and clinical 'truth'.
• Intervention development to promote 'professional equipoise' by valuing diverse professional contributions.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in professional discourses were identified, leading to mutual stereotyping.
• Efforts to address discursive assumptions showed potential for fostering appreciation of other professions.
• The concept of 'professional equipoise' emerged as a framework for interprofessional understanding.

Conclusions:

• Sustained, integrated interprofessional education curriculum is crucial for changing professional discourses.
• Embedded, longitudinal training with faculty role modeling is essential.
• Creating safe spaces for discussing professional differences can positively impact novice professional identity formation.