Global Café: Rerouting: IPE Passport and the Quest for an Interprofessional Identity
- 11 February 2025
- UTC 15.00 / GMT 15.00 / 17.00 South Africa
Presenters:
- Luzaan Africa PhD, University of the Western Cape, AfrIPEN
- Gérard Filies PhD, University of the Western Cape, AfrIPEN
Moderator:
- Suzy Plows, CAIPE
Abstract:
The Interprofessional Education (IPE) curriculum at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) fosters teamwork competencies through comprehensive undergraduate, postgraduate, and capacity development programmes. At the undergraduate level, learning and teaching activities are designed based on the three stages of the Interprofessional Socialisation Framework, with a particular focus on interprofessional core competencies.
Student engagement in these activities is assessed using analytic rubrics aligned with these competencies. Achieving a passing mark earns students stamps, which contribute to their interprofessional passport—a symbolic record of their progression. This journey culminates in a holistic evaluation at the end of their academic programme using the Rubric for Interprofessional Identity Development to assess the overall growth of their interprofessional identity. Finally, to bridge theory and practice, students undertake interprofessional entrustable professional activities at the student-led Interprofessional Wellness Centre. These activities provide opportunities to demonstrate the collaborative practice competencies obtained through the interprofessional education curriculum in real-world settings. The final assessment is conducted by interprofessional supervisors, referred to as “border control,” who determine the student’s readiness for interprofessional practice. Successful students receive the final stamp in their passport, signifying their readiness to “fly” on the UWC airline to their destination: Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice.
Dr. Luzaan Africa is a Lecturer and interprofessional clinical supervisor in the Interprofessional Education Unit in the Faculty of Community and Health Sciences at the University of the Western Cape. She is actively involved in the development and implementation of an interprofessional curriculum. She is a part of a team that offers interprofessional collaborative practice supervision to senior health science students. In her capacity as lecturer, she teaches and convenes interprofessional modules to undergraduate and postgraduate health and social science students. She joined the unit in 2016 after nearly two years in private practice. She holds a BSc Physiotherapy, an MSc Physiotherapy, and PhD in Physiotherapy. Her research interests include interprofessional education and collaborative practice, primary health care, and health professions education.
Dr. Gérard Filies is a registered Occupational Therapist by profession. The title of his PhD study was: Development of an interprofessional education model that aims to instil the core competencies of interprofessional collaborative practice in allied health students’ curriculum. At UWC, he is a full time senior lecturer and Chairperson of the Interprofessional Education Unit (IPEU) in the Faculty of Community & Health Sciences. Dr Gérard Filies as part of a team was appointed as convenor for driving the process for registration and accreditation of the Postgraduate Diploma in Interprofessional Education in Health – a first of its kind in the Western Cape, if not a first in South Africa. Dr Filies is the the current Chairperson of the African Interprofessional Network (AfrIPEN) and serves on the steering committee of Interprofessional Research.Global (IPR.Global). He was recently acknowledged by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for his expertise and longstanding commitment to advancing education in the critical field of Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (IPECP) and was invited to be a member of a Curriculum Development Advisory Group under the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO). This Advisory Group will focus advising on the development of prototype competency-based curricula for selected health profession programmes for Africa, supporting the region in building a robust and sustainable healthcare workforce.
Author email: lkock@uwc.ac.za
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