Top SHLS team win Interprofessional Global Award

Four staff members from the School of Health and Life Sciences (SHLS) have received an Interprofessional Global Award recognising their contribution to collaborative research in the area of interprofessional education and collaboration (IPECP).

Members of the SHLS on the winning team were; Strategic Lead for IPE Dr Nichola McLarnon, Senior Lecturer Physiotherapy and Interprofessional Education Dr Sharron Blumenthal, Assistant Head of Learning Teaching and Quality Jamie McDermott, and Senior Lecturer in Radiotherapy Louise Boyle. The team are part of the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) Research Experience Sub-Group.

Interprofessional Global is the Global Confederation for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice that facilitates support and exchange between regional interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP) networks.

The award was given to the CAIPE Research Experience Sub-Group for outstanding interprofessional teamwork and collaboration in relation to IPECP.

The SHLS faculty members formed part of a CAIPE Research Experience Subgroup. CAIPE is the leading organisation in the UK for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice.

Nichola has been a CAIPE board member for the past six years and has been the strategic lead for IPE within the SHLS for the last 10 years, and has been involved in IPE provision for 20 years. Nichola undertook these roles alongside being the Associate Dean for Learning, Teaching and Quality for the SHLS.

Jamie, Louise and Sharron have involvement and leadership roles in relation to IPE at Glasgow Caledonian University over the last 20 years.

Sharron explained: "We were delighted to win the award and be recognised for our contribution to collaborative research in this important field of interprofessional education.

"Interprofessional education has been core to the University's education provision since 2004 and serves to enable students within health and social care to learn with, from and about each other to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service provision.

"The IPE team have presented the University's innovative approach to IPE at multiple international conferences for IPECP including All Together Better Health in Japan, Pittsburgh, Oxford, Australia and more recently Qatar."

IPE is an educational approach that was endorsed in 2010 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that aims to promote the skills of collaboration that are essential to deal with global emergent health and social care challenges.

This educational approach has been endorsed by the recent Winterthur-Doha Declaration (November, 2023), which in article 1 pledges to "advocate for system changes that foster an environment that supports sustainable interprofessional education and collaborative practice and promotes the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN 2015)".