Exploring the “led” in health professional student-led experiences: a scoping review
- 9 September 2025
07.00 (EST) / 11.00 (UTC) / 21.00 (AEST)
Presenters:
- Dean Lising, University of Toronto
- Jodey Copley, The University of Queensland
- Teresa Quinlan, The University of Queensland
- Ann Hill, The University of Queensland
- Kathryn Parker, University of Toronto
Moderator:
- Kateryna Metersky, Toronto Metropolitan University
Abstract:
To support a complex health system, students are expected to be competent leaders as well as competent clinicians. Intentional student leadership development is needed in health professional education programs. Student-led experiences such as student-run clinics and interprofessional training wards, are practice-based learning opportunities where learners provide leadership to clinical services and/or address a gap in the system. Given the absence of leadership definitions and concepts, this scoping review explored how student leadership is conceptualized and developed in student-led experiences. The review was conducted in accordance with best practices in scoping review methodology within the scope of relevant practice-based student-led experiences for health professional students. The research team screened 4659 abstracts, identified 315 articles for full-text review and selected 75 articles for data extraction and analysis. A thematic analysis produced themes related to leadership concepts/theories/models, objectives, facilitation/supervision, assessment and evaluation of curriculum. While responding to system gaps within health professional care, student-led experiences need to align explicit leadership theory/concepts/models with curricular objectives, pedagogy, and assessments to support health professional education. To support future student-led experiences, authors mapped five leadership student role profiles that were associated with student-led models and could be constructively aligned with theory and concepts. In addition to leveraging a student workforce to address system needs, student-led experiences must also be a force for learning through a reciprocal model of leadership and service to develop future health professionals and leaders.
Dean Lising is the Integration Lead, Collaborative Healthcare/Education at the Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education, leading interprofessional education (IPE) curriculum and care at University of Toronto (UT). He has appointments as Assistant Professor, Dept of Physical Therapy, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, UT, Professor, Cardiovascular Perfusion, Michener Institute of Education, and Education Investigator 2 at The Institute of Education Research, University Health Network. Dean integrates CIHC competencies in his leadership in the University of Toronto IPE Curriculum, professional/team development programs locally/internationally in roles such as IPE Scholar-in-Residence (Centennial College), Director, BOOST! (Building Optimal Outcomes from Successful Teamwork), Co-Lead for the VITAL (Virtual Interprofessional Teaching and Learning), Faculty for ehpic (Educating Health Professionals in Interprofessional Care) programs, Ontario’s Improving and Driving Excellence Across Sectors Foundations. He is studying as a PhD (Health Professions Education Research) student at Wilson Centre, IHPME, University of Toronto with research interests in interprofessional education/care and regulated learning.
Jodie Copley is Professor and Head of Occupational Therapy at The University of Queensland, Fellow of the Occupational Therapy Australia Research Academy and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has worked as a university educator for over 25 years and has over 35 years clinical experience working with children with developmental disabilities and children and adults with brain injury. Jodie started the student-led UQ Children’s Life Skills Clinic in 1997. She has published two books and over 120 journal articles and book chapters. Her research interests include clinical education, clinical reasoning and interprofessional collaborative practice, both at a pre-entry level and to support lifelong learning of healthcare practitioners. She has been heavily involved in continuing professional education for occupational therapists for 30 years in Australia, Singapore, the U.K., North and South America, and has a special interest in supporting the transition to practice for new graduate occupational therapists.
Teresa Quinlan is the Clinic Manager of The University of Queensland (UQ) Health & Rehabilitation Occupational Therapy Clinic where she works collaboratively with a team of health professionals to support clinical education across graduate and undergraduate programs within the UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. She has worked for many years with local Indigenous schools and communities developing interprofessional clinical education clinics and has extensive paediatric experience, having worked overseas in the USA and Middle East. Teresa has worked collaboratively with teams in several overseas interprofessional placements to Vietnam and is passionate about creating interprofessional learning opportunities to educate staff, students and communities across clinical and academic learning environments.
Dr Anne Hill PhD BSpThy is an Honorary Associate Professor in Speech Pathology in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland. She is an accreditor for Speech Pathology Australia and an academic consultant in the areas of curriculum development and accreditation. Anne is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research has focussed on teaching and learning for students in the health sciences and has primarily investigated student learning outcomes and assessment in the areas of simulation, interprofessional education and students’ development of cultural responsiveness using a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Anne’s passion for interprofessional education has grown from her extensive clinical experience in interprofessional teams, supervision of students in interprofessional clinics, teaching and research in best practice in interprofessional education and strong and ongoing collaboration with colleagues at the University of Toronto.
Kathryn Parker received her PhD in program evaluation from the University of Toronto in 2006. She has co-authored over 40 papers, presented her work at various national and international conferences. She is an Associate Professor with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto and was also the recipient of the 2013 AMS Phoenix Fellowship. She served as the Senior Director of Academic Affairs at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital for 12 years. Her collaborative work moving educational innovations forward within academic health science centres have garnered numerous awards including the Larry Chester Award for Excellence in Strategic Leadership from the University of Toronto in 2013 and the 2018 Award of Excellence in Organizational Leadership from the Canadian Association of Pediatric Healthcare Centres. She has recently joined the Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare and Education (CACHE) as an Associate Director with a focus on supporting transformative change in healthcare education.
Presenter’s email: Kathryn.Parker@uhn.ca, Dean.lising@uhn.ca, J.copley@uq.edu.au, t.quinlan@uq.edu.au, ae.hill@uq.edu.au
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