Students' Testimonies
Madeleine Hsue
MBBS, Year 5
"My favourite IPE activity was formulating a case management plan with students from other disciplines. It was a whole new experience to collaborate with students from other health care disciplines. This activity also allowed me to recognize the limitations of physicians and the merits of collaboration over a division of labour alone.
After participating in IPE, I learnt that albeit doctors need to be the leaders of a healthcare team, everyone should also learn to become a good team player as collaboration brings better healthcare to the patients and ensures safety. More importantly, one’s knowledge is nevertheless is finite."
"IPE is an important program for preparing us to provide holistic care to patients. I really appreciate the opportunity to interact with other future HCPs. I learned how to function in an interprofessional team and apply my knowledge and skills in pharmacy in my future practice, ultimately optimising patient outcomes.
As future HCPs, you should seize this valuable opportunity to utilise your profession-specific expertise to collaborate with other students. Remember, joint decision making is of utmost importance in IPE and each student should not hesitate to share his/her views with others."
So Wang Leong Kevin
Pharmacy, Year 4
Wong Ho Kai Ben
Masters in Social Work
"I like the management planning the most. This IPE activity is the best occasion for students of different disciplines to exchange ideas and learn from one another. It is also a good opportunity to evaluate and change my previous belief that the knowledge of other disciplines is hard to understand.
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After the class, I realized that collaboration among various disciplines is crucial for the well-being of our target clients. To achieve this, knowledge transfer is important as well as the building of trust among professionals because it is a fundamental element of collaboration. I believe IPE aims at this and everyone must participate."
Ng Cheuk Lam Michelle
Nursing, Year 4
"I liked the team meeting via Zoom because that was the time that I actually had real-time communicating with my groupmates from different disciplines. We had a wonderful discussion about the clinical case and answered questions more effectively as a team.
Interprofessional collaboration can foster patients’ quality of care and improve delivery of health care services. I liked the interactive activities among team members members because we could read other students' answers and give replies. The gathering of students from different helped me to view the questions/cases from different perspectives. I hope future students will enjoy and actively participate in it! "
Mak Ka Man Carman
Nursing, Year 3
"IPE enriches my knowledge on holistic care because it involves the care plan of different disciplines. The part I like the most is healthcare management planning because we can present our knowledge with students in different disciplines, this is really helpful towards multidisciplinary collaboration in the future. It is a great chance for us to learn from one another, enjoy!! "
Priscilla Yip
BNurs, Year 4
"The activity I like most in the IPE is formulating multiple-choice questions because it stimulates each of us to think widely and deeply concerning our respective fields of profession. To formulate a good question, we need to reflect on what we have learnt after gaining new perspectives from the lesson and then figure out on the level of understanding of my group mates from the other disciplines. After that, we need to view and comment on the questions formulated by other teammates. This activity is an enriching experience for me in terms of knowing the way of thinking of different professions, and I feel gratified in learning more about one another. This experience indeed paves the way in learning to have better interdisciplinary cooperation in my future career.
For students who will participate in the IPE in the future, I would say that IPE is something out of the ordinary university assignment. The continuous grind may be arduous, but this can be a time to know more about the other healthcare disciplines before we formally collaborate for the benefit of the patients in the actual setting. And you may meet a good friend or two, too!"
Chong Lai Ching Mimi
BNurs, Year 4
"IPE combines all healthcare-related disciplines to develop Whole Person Care. As a result, we can explore more in-depth information to recognize the best method for clients with complex needs– physical, psychological, socioeconomic, spiritual, etc.
The most interesting activity in IPE is the care planning and individual team presentation. Online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic does not stop our enthusiasm for interdisciplinary learning. I am excited to share my views about the case and listen to one another for suggestions. It is a thought-provoking process to design an individualized care plan to manage the cases by integrating information to correctly identify needs and risks and select appropriate services to meet the clients' needs.
I hope that my junior schoolmates can grab the chance to explore more how to cooperate with other health professionals in case management. Good luck!"
Wu Chun Long Anson
MBBS, Year 4
"I particularly liked tackling multiple-choice questions as a team for the Readiness Assurance Process and Application Exercise. Through open and constructive discussion, I learnt how my teammates approached the questions and understood their chains of thoughts. Students from different professions interpreted the multiple-choice questions differently and subsequently chose different answers reflecting the competing priorities of their respective disciplines. Their lines of reasoning inspired me, which reminded me to think of clinical problems from more diverse perspectives instead of being too narrow-minded. I value this eye-opening opportunity to discuss problems related to developmental delay in an interprofessional setting and translate these discussions into a comprehensive care management plan with the common goal of optimising individualised patient care. I am convinced that future cohorts of students will also benefit from this programme by embracing interprofessional collaboration, understanding the strengths and limitations of various professions, and applying the skills gained from this experience in the future as health professionals."
Cheng Hiu Wa
Eunice
Physiotherapy (TWC), Year 3
" The experience was thoroughly enriching and, despite being conducted online, has been an authentic depiction of how various professionals cooperate in clinical settings. It has enabled us to recognize our respective areas of strengths and limitations, and how, through close communication, gaps in patient care may be filled to produce seamless, holistic service.
As a physiotherapy student, this has been a valuable opportunity that enables us not only to put our knowledge into practice, but to learn that optimal care is, in fact, not only contribution of what we have and know, but enquiring others on what they have in mind as well, ultimately maximizing effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare services.
Care Planning for the fracture case was most inspiring and thought-provoking, as each member's contribution was irreplaceable - it was brilliant to witness how different strategies from various professions interweave together to form a comprehensive proposal, and as management of the wide range of conditions was very much interdependent, each of us has learnt to take heed of what others have been formulating and expand on the plan correspondingly."
Law Ching Lam
Stephanie
MBBS, Year 4
"Our team was very cooperative when formulating the management plan. Not only did we work on our own assigned tasks, but we also facilitated other teammates' parts. When we had diverse views on certain issues, we were all willing to share our opinions, fully utilize our expertise from our respective fields, and reach a consensus. For example, our group mates who had a nursing background gave us valuable insights in handling the case related to developmental delay. Everyone was attentive in the discussions. Besides, I also attained knowledge pertaining to developmental delay, specifically Down Syndrome, via this case study. Although I hadn't seen an actual case of Down Syndrome before, I am now more equipped to help patients with developmental delay conditions. IPE proffered a very good opportunity for me to collaborate with students from other majors, and we learnt a lot from one another."
Lee Lok Ching
Candice
Speech and Hearing Science, Year 5
"When planning the healthcare plan for Mrs. Cheung, we first identified her current problems and concerns of caregivers, which are in the aspects of cognition and swallowing. Then, we collaborated in proposing intervention for Mrs. Cheung. To ensure safe swallowing, further case history taking and assessment is needed to examine her swallowing functions and investigate the problems of current diet (spitting out food, loss of appetite, choking). I also suggested management such as diet modification, oral motor exercise, caregiver education. Regarding interprofessional collaboration, speech therapists work closely with different parties, like doctors (consult about effects of medication), nurses (provide feeding assistance, report of choking), caregivers (do home practice with Mrs. Cheung, preparing meals), etc. Our team has good communication and common goals, which is to provide an individualized and comprehensive management for the client."
Tong Wai Sing
Amos
Master of Social Work, Year 1
"Students came from three different disciplines, social work, medicine, and speech and hearing. As you might imagine, none of us will have a full picture of how the care plan is coming to be. The service targets in our case include not only the patient but her family members and even her teachers. Our learning gives us insufficient clues about others’ roles and tasks. There is no single model that could best-explain our case analysis and the treatment. Everyone has their own framework and working model. When no one knows about the whole picture, it is anxious.
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The only thing we can do is to communicate with others. We have back-and-forth discussions for times. It was not like the ordinary group assignments. We finished our parts, and we had to explain our works to others in layman's terms. IPE provides a unique and valuable experience on how multidisciplinary collaboration is like. It was stressful when we do know what to expect from other groupmates. But it is the right time to experience how to collaborate with other disciplines so that we can manage it in the actual setting."
Leung Tsun Hei
Nursing, Year 4
"IPE has allowed me to collaborate with students from other disciplines, which is rarely possible with your regular everyday courses, I have learnt a lot from other students during this project. What's more important, in my opinion, is to learn how to communicate with others during the course of the activity, not everyone has the same viewpoints and that's why we should learn to express ourselves clearly, and when there are disagreements, we have to find a way to work things out and come to a conclusion all while maintaining cohesion in our group.
My favourite part is the RAT for sure, it really gave us a chance to break the ice with other group mates, it's also awesome to see all of us coming together to solve some of the problems. For future IPE students, do treasure the chance and give this activity your best shot to get the most out of it, and most importantly, enjoy yourselves during the process!"
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