Plenary session 2: Reimagining dentistry within the inter professional healthcare team

Reimagining dentistry within the inter professional healthcare team

Oral Health Professionals are increasingly recognised as vital members of multidisciplinary healthcare teams, contributing to a holistic approach to patient care. Preparing dental students to be effective members of a multidisciplinary team involves fostering collaboration, communication, and understanding of diverse roles within healthcare. This includes training them to work alongside other dental professionals as well as with broader healthcare teams. Interprofessional education (IPE) plays a key role in this process, helping students develop respect for other professions and build strong teamwork skills.

This plenary session will look at the past, present and future of IPE in dental education. The panel of speakers will explore why IPE is of key importance to prepare dental graduates to be collaborative practice-ready graduates. Dr Jensen will provide a brief history of the evolution of IPE in health professions education, outline examples of IPE frameworks, explore the patient’s role in IPE and the importance of patient involvement in IPE. Dr Reidy Murphy will give an overview of current IPE practice in the USA, discuss case studies and the approach taken in the Harvard School of Dental Science and consider the development of competencies needed to work effectively as part of an interprofessional team. Finally, Dr McGowan will look to the future direction of IPE and the factors that need to be considered as IPE programmes are grown and further developed.