Ethics: A Catalyst for Interprofessional Teamwork and Collaboration

What is the right thing to do? The training of ethics and ethical decision making is oftentimes overlooked and assumed to be an innate skill; however, it is a central concept expected to be upheld by each provider through their respective code of ethics. Ethical decision making is not black and white and typically complicated by complex circumstances. As leaders, and mentors to future leaders, it is our responsibility as educators to train the future workforce to work collaboratively to solve the increasingly complex health problems we see today and can expect in the future. By intentionally integrating real world ethical case studies into the curriculum, we can provide practice opportunities for students from different disciplines to work and learn from one another on how to negotiate and solve ethical dilemmas they will face in their career. This Lightning Talk will walk the audience through the development, implementation, and evaluation of three case studies that were created for a graduate level Introduction to Interprofessional Education course for allied health professions (n=12) including: nursing, health promotion, nutrition, psychology, and exercise science. The presentation will also highlight how these non-traditional partners worked together to solve the dilemmas, and will present the findings of the students and faculty members involved in this class showcasing how and why ethics can be used as an effective tool to facilitate interprofessional collaboration and teamwork. The audience will be able to use the information provided in this talk to develop, implement, and evaluate relevant ethical dilemmas that can be added to current or future curriculum to better prepare the future workforce to work together with other disciplines to improve patient safety and outcomes in practice and community based settings.