European developments and interprofessional education

1. European developments and interprofessional education Walter Lorenz Free University of Bolzano, Italy

6. ‘profession’ ‘The term is a reminder of the way in which each succeeding generation, and each new group of would-be professionals, used the examples of history in order to define, organize, and publicize their own particular expertise and cultural authority. In successive generations of would-be professionals, the language of predecessors became, through the ingenious use of metaphor, ready-made and usable tradition.’ (Joanne Brown; (1992), The Definition of a Profession: The Authority of Metaphor in the History of Intelligence Testing, 1890-1930, Princeton University Press

7. Professional reassurance • Qualification • Exclusive field of practice • Ethical commitment • Rules and regulations • Mutual trust between professionals and general public

8. Uncertainties concerning professional reliability • Misconduct episodes weaken the principle of self-regulation • Influence over university curricula is weakening • Proliferation of occupational fields claiming professional status • Increasing complexity and differentiation of knowledge areas

9. Demand for more accountability mistrusts professional self-control and power interests Growth of external controls introduces new centres of power whose accountability is dubious Erosion of trust

10. profession • Fixed entity – defined by members themselves (defensive position) - or • Discursive entity, co-constructed in process of negotiation and communication (inter-professional position)

11. Interprofessional cooperation - negative notions • Letting bordering professions in on ‘our’ terms • Sharing office premises • Becoming exchangeable

12. Interprofessional cooperation - positive notions • Critical boundary exchanges – no field ‘belongs’ to only one profession, but each profession has particular skills • Critical exchanges on methodology • Critical exchanges with ‘lay people’ (users of services)

13. Interprofessional education • Using positively the binary device of ‘them and us’ • Interprofessional education needs to relate to intercultural skills: creation of non-defensive, non-discriminatory identities

14. Interprofessional education Responsibility for acquiring appropriate forms of knowledge and methodology is tied to communicating one’s specific forms of knowledge and their application

15. Paradigm: European exchanges • Can be about harmonisation and standardisation • Can be about learning to deal constructively with diversity (and uncertainty)

16. Challenge of neoliberalism • Paradigm shift from input to output • Dismantling of professional boundaries – or • Tapping into new processes of accountability

17. Interprofessional education and European exchanges