Twenty years experiences of interprofessional education in Linköping – ground-breaking and sustainable

TLDR

Linköping University pioneered interprofessional education in 1986, and over two decades its model demonstrates that early exposure to diverse health professions fosters professional identity and develops interprofessional competence through staged learning. This paper shares the authors’ experiences to inform the implementation and sustainability of undergraduate interprofessional education. Implementation involved early IPE modules followed by a final ward placement, supported by problem‑based learning in small groups and student‑centered approaches. The model’s development, outcomes, and experiential insights are presented, along with outlines for future challenges.

Abstract

A pioneering and ground-breaking effort to organize interprofessional education (IPE) was initiated in 1986 at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Linköping University in Sweden. The so-called “Linköping IPE model” has now yielded practical experience and development of curricula for over 20 years. The basic idea of this model is that it is favorable for the development of students' own professional identity to meet other health and social professions already into their undergraduate studies. Interprofessional learning is a process over time that requires several integrated stages to gain interprofessional competence, i.e., the skills required to work together interprofessionally in practice. We believe that defined IPE modules early in the curriculum combined with student-training ward placement as the final module is an encouraging example of how to implement undergraduate IPE among health science students. It is strengthened by problem based learning (PBL) in small groups and student-centered learning. Based on these experiences, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on how to implement and achieve the aims of IPE and to keep it sustainable. It is not a description of “how to do it” but rather a summarizing of our experiences for successful performance of IPE. The article presents how the Linköping model was developed, the outcomes, experiences and some outlines for future challenges.