Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Service Learning: Lessons from Health Professions

The boundaries of the health professions are changing faster now than at any time in the past century, creating a growing demand for the skills of collaboration, effective communication and teamwork. While the health care system itself has begun to embrace interdisciplinary team approaches to delivering care, medical, nursing and allied health programs provide very little direct, collaborative training of their students or faculty. Interdisciplinary service-learning holds great promise for equipping future health professionals with the collaborative problem solving skills necessary to effect significant change in the health of our communities. This paper describes three different models of interdisciplinary service-learning in health professions education, explores common experiences and themes across models, and identifies what appear to be key components for success. (author)