Does participation in a personality/behavior/communication intervention, such as DiSC training, improve health professions students’ overall leadership skills including competency in interprofessional communication and/or their preparation for working in teams?
The Interprofessional Educationan Profressional Collaborative (IPEC) has established four core competencies for interprofessional education: 1. Values/Ethics for Interprofessional Practice, 2, Roles/Responsibilities, 3. Interprofessinal Communication, and 4. Teams and Teamwork.1 Health professions educators are tasked with helping learners develop and demonstrate these competencies as they move through their respective training programs. The IPEC competency (3) of Inteprofessional Communication aims for learners to be able to Communicate with patients, families, communities, and professionals in health and other fields in a responsive and responsible manner that supports a team approach to the promotion and maintenance of health and the prevention of treatment of disease. The Teams & Teamwork competency (4) is for learners to be able to: Apply relationship-building values and the principles of team dynamics to perform effectively in different team roles to plan, deliver, and evaluate patient/population-centered care and population health programs and policies that are safe, timely, efficient, effective and equitable.1 These two competencies are tied to overall leadership skills in the health professions as leadership requires strong communication, relationship-building, and conflict management skills. Health professions faculty and learners have voiced the need for formal leadership training in their curricula.2 A recent survey that I conducted across North Carolina PA programs indicated that PA Program Directors all identified communication and interrelational skills as important areas for leadership training. Inclusion of a personality/behavior/communication workshop as part of a health professions training program is an opportunity to develop both leadership skills and the interprofessional competencies of communication and preparedness for teamwork. Such tools give individuals an opportunity to assess their own communication and interpersonal skills in addition to learning about how others relate to people.3 These components of self-awareness, social awareness, and relational skills account for emotional intelligence, which is often credited for being the difference between good and great leaders.2 The ability to work effectively in teams is additionally a component of leadership.4 Participation in a communication or relational workshop additionally has the potential to help learners be better prepared to work in teams and to effectively communicate with each other and with patients. The goal of this project is to pilot inclusion of a personality/behavior/communication workshop as part of student leadership development and to evaluate the impact of this experience on the interprofessional competencies of communication and teamwork. The long-term goal would be to develop future opportunities in which interprofessional health professions students can participate in these types of experiences and develop their competencies alongside each other.
- 2019