hi, i was wondering what other students thought of their Inter Professional Education and even if they do it.

i have been disapointed with what we have been doing. i understand the importance of it and value the chance to learn to work together professionally however i have found it to be very orientated to the medical model and seem to spend a lot of time sticking up for social workers and social work. there is a lot of stereotyping by the nurses on the course and this is backed up by some of their tutors.

 i also think it is a shame that police, teachers, doctors are not included as i am sure we will come across them in our working lives.i know it would be a logistical nightmare to try and arrange this. 

to me our IPE feels a little bit tokenistic.

Hiya our IPE was IPP (practice) jointly run by social care and health at uni.  It was very obviously based on a medical model however I can see the benefit as we have a really good IPP team in our authority.  Bear with it it will get better.  As for sticking up for social workers you are going to spend the rest of your life justifying that one.  I also work in a statutory organisation and very much find that we are 'working together' as we have had to since 1989 others are catching on slowly.  The new public law outline is making people respond a bit better in practice as they are all a bit worried of being called to court.  When its good it works well.

I've done two inter-professional placements.  I found the placements themselves quite good, it was useful spending a bit of time in a different setting and being able to meet students of other professions.

However, the projects that we were doing weren't what we would be doing as qualified professionals - in my second one we were basically researching our supervisor's dissertation for her. 

 I agree with your comment that it seems a bit tokenistic.  I haven't met anyone who actually felt they gained a great deal from the experience, and the general view seems to be that it's about ticking that box to say you have done inter-professional work, rather than anything else.

I had a bad experience with one student nurse in particular.  As soon as she found out what course I was on she started telling me how useless social workers are etc, and make some rather offensive comments.  When I tried to stand up for the profession she wouldn't even listen and and just said that she didn't care if I was bothered by her comments. 

I agree that it would be good if other professionals were involved, but it seems enough of a nightmare as it is now.  Our units have been during our placements, so just as we have got settled somewhere we've had to go and do a two week IPL placement somewhere else.  Other students said the same, basically whenever it was it would have interfered with somebody's course/placement.

Hi, In our 2^nd year we had to attend different workshops covering different scenarios, we then had to produce a poster then present it separately.  I found that a lot of the information was based on the medical model however I did find it interesting. Our groups were very out weighed by nurses and only the odd midwife (OTs and physiotherapists were out on placement). Resulting  in social workers being very out numbered  and we had to fight to get our opinions heard. I do feel that all professions should be encouraged to work together and doing it in uni can help to break the stereotypes (unless you have bad experiences, which did happen to a few of my fellow students).

I do agree with you I think I'll have more contact with teachers, police and doctors than nurses who will be mainly based in hospital settings. P.S Just found out we have to attend another one next year