A Decade of Interactive Educational Exchange: Impacting Interprofessional Palliative Care Education

The interprofessional clinical practice model is arguably the most impactful and generative aspect of hospice and palliative care (HPC) clinical practice. This article describes the innovative, shared interprofessional leadership model, andragogical infrastructure, program development, educational impact, and critical lessons from the Interactive Educational Exchange (IEE). In response to a deficit in interprofessional HPC educational opportunities for rapid scholarship dissemination and mentorship, interprofessional leaders from medicine, social work and nursing proposed and implemented the IEE at the Annual Assembly of Hospice and Palliative Care presented by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association from 2010 to 2020. The reported outcome measures for interprofessional scholarship and engagement, session evaluations, and attendance demonstrate why this successful innovation was repeated annually for over a decade pre-COVID. Scholarship dissemination was rapid, with robust community engagement, inclusive of multiple professional disciplines over time. Indeed, the IEE became a step in the career trajectory of many interprofessional HPC clinician-educators during that decade. The highlighted lessons around vision, structure, and community leave us with an IEE model that can be flexibly adapted to other settings. In championing the interprofessional HPC clinical model forward to achieve the highest quality of care for our patients, we recommend prioritizing intentional models to promote and support interprofessional HPC educators in dissemination of scholarship, collaborative mentorship, and community building so all can thrive.