[Interprofessional approaches in undergraduate medical education]

Social change and the subsequent increase in the complexity of patient care create new challenges for all health care professionals that can only be met by close collaboration. Good cooperation between professionals from all healthcare backgrounds has proven to be essential and should therefore play a larger role in educational and study contexts.It is for this reason that over the past few years more and more countries are requiring cooperative skills and competencies in formal medical training and consequently implementing this training in their healthcare systems. This is certainly true in countries such as Sweden, Canada, England, and most recently Switzerland, where interprofessional teaching is being systematically introduced into medical training.The current situation in Germany is demonstrated by the selected projects from the Robert Bosch Foundation's support program "Operation Team." The existing need for interprofessional qualification opportunities and advanced training programs for teaching staff, the need for exam content for medical state examinations, as well as to establish a structural framework and research structure in the area of interprofessional education and competence development are outlined and discussed.