Professor Jean Hay-Smith
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Professor of Rehabilitation, University of Otago, Wellington, NZ
I am Tangata Tiriti with whakapapa links to Ireland, Germany, England and Scotland. My working life began nurse aiding in a rural obstetric unit, followed by physiotherapy training, clinical work in Aotearoa New Zealand and United Kingdom, completion of an MSc (in London) and a PhD once I returned home.
Unifying my 40-year clinical, research, and teaching career is the experience of working in teams, usually comprising multiple disciplines. Previously teaching a postgraduate paper on interprofessional teamwork, provided an opportunity to explore team functioning ‘academically’ and ‘practically’. As a Professor of Rehabilitation, at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, I teach and provide research supervision for postgraduate students from multiple disciplines and wide-ranging rehabilitation contexts such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, older person’s health, and pain. |
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For those who like the ‘quantifiable’, I have led or contributed to grants worth more than 5 million NZ dollars, published more than 150 papers, chaired the committee for Conservative Management at 3 International Consultations on Incontinence, been a Cochrane Editor for Cochrane Incontinence, and have twice been awarded best abstract at the annual scientific meeting of the International Continence Society. No prizes for guessing my primary research focus!
Interprofessional Ways of Learning and Doing
Many conference attendees will identify as a ‘health professional’ and more explicitly as a doctor, nurse, etc. Ways of thinking and doing that distinguish one profession from another constitute a professional culture. Interprofessional learning is commonly defined as “two or more professions learn with, from, and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care” (CAIPE 2002, 2012) Therefore, interprofessional working is inherently a cross-cultural endeavour as the socialisation process changes from being within to between professional cultures.
Interprofessional working embraces diversity in ways of thinking and doing to provide care that is more than the sum of the parts. Each profession contributes a unique perspective because they are trained to see in a ‘particular’ way exclusive to their profession. Finding the shared meaning from these multiple perspectives is the challenge of interprofessional working. Assumptions about meaning or dismissing divergent perspectives reduces quality of care and increases chances of harm, but negotiating meaning requires time, energy and attention that people often feel they don’t have.
This presentation offers observations of and suggestions for practical and effective ways of interprofessional learning and doing that may contribute to better outcomes for people, health professional teams, and organisations.
Interprofessional working embraces diversity in ways of thinking and doing to provide care that is more than the sum of the parts. Each profession contributes a unique perspective because they are trained to see in a ‘particular’ way exclusive to their profession. Finding the shared meaning from these multiple perspectives is the challenge of interprofessional working. Assumptions about meaning or dismissing divergent perspectives reduces quality of care and increases chances of harm, but negotiating meaning requires time, energy and attention that people often feel they don’t have.
This presentation offers observations of and suggestions for practical and effective ways of interprofessional learning and doing that may contribute to better outcomes for people, health professional teams, and organisations.
