Fostering Interprofessional Competencies and Leadership Skills in Student-Run Pro Bono Clinics and Community Initiatives
Interprofessional collaborative practice and teamwork is a vital component of creating new models of care to improve coordination of health care services within the complex and rapidly evolving health care environment. Interprofessional teamwork involves cooperation, coordination, and collaboration with other professions to provide the highest quality of patient-centered care, requiring development of leadership and team skills. The importance of developing quality interprofessional education has been highlighted by recommendations endorsed by multiple accreditation bodies for a longitudinal sequenced continuum of experiences including extracurricular and experiential interprofessional education activities. Student-run pro bono clinics and other community engagement opportunities are an attractive option to offer realistic contexts and experiences to develop the necessary interprofessional competencies related to values and ethics, understanding of roles and responsibilities, interprofessional communication, and teamwork skills. These real-world opportunities also offer an ideal setting to prepare future leaders for the challenges of health care, with student-run models providing opportunities for quality improvement and administration experience. The speakers will present pro bono and community engagement service models and initiatives and methods used to develop student leaders, present selected outcomes, and discuss some of the challenges that have led to student and program growth.