SI-PL-1934

Sunday 17:50, Fira Palace Hotel, Verdi

INTERDISCIPLINARY CLINICAL EDUCATION PROGRAM. King J; University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada Lafoley B; Northeastern Ontario Medical Education Corporation, Sudbury, Canada. PURPOSE: This program introduces physiotherapy students as well as students in occupational therapy, speech therapy, audiology, nursing and medicine to interdisciplinary teamwork and provides an opportunity for them to function as a health care team in rural and remote clinical settings. RELEVANCE: To provide the best care for patients, physiotherapists need to work within a team environment. Research evidence supports the early introduction of interdisciplinary teamwork for physiotherapy students. Unfortuantely many physiotherapy educational programs due to curricular, time and financial restraints, provide limited opportunities for the students to interact and learn from other health care professionals. This program provides a practical forum to promote interdisciplinary education and teamwork. DESCRIPTION: This model of clinical education is a partnership between multiple urban academic settings and remote community based health care delivery programs in Canada. This program is one component of a larger initative that also deals with health care professional recruitement. Teams of health care professional students participate in tutorial groups on campus. The students are introducted to concepts of professional roles and responsibilites, scope of practice and interdisciplinary teamwork. Students maintain communication with their teammates using different types of technology used to work successfully in rural and remote areas such as computer networking and videoconferencing. In the rural setting, tutorial sessions are attended by the students and their rural preceptors. The focus is on student-centered learning ,clinical cases (problems) are developed and presented by the students based on their own experiences with patients. These are used as learning tools for further exploration of interdisciplinary issues and clinical knowledge. OBSERVATIONS: After participating in this program, physiotherapy students report that they have gained knowledge and have an increased awareness of the health care roles and responsibilities of the various team members. The students develop an awareness of services delivery challenges and an increased preparedness for the skills needed to work as a team to overcome these challenges. The academic settings acknowledge an increased opportunity to work colloboratively with other disciplines. The rural preceptors report that the program provides an opportunity to network and improve team function in their communities. CONCLUSIONS: Although based in Northern Ontario, Canada this very interesting and innovative way to increase team work and understanding of rural or isolated health issues for physiotherapy students could be adapted and applied in other countries.