Facilitating transdisciplinary teamwork in dietetics education: a case study approach.

Teamwork, emphasized by the transdisciplinary approach, has been strongly linked to the development of a culture of patient safety. However, the vast majority of health care education is one-dimensional, ie, focused on one discipline, taught by practitioners of the same discipline, with students of the same discipline. In an effort to address this one-dimensional view of health care education, a case-study assignment was developed to facilitate professional interaction between graduate physical therapy and graduate nutrition students. The objectives were threefold: (a). to increase student understanding of the role of another discipline, (b). to increase student ability to obtain and analyze information from a consultant relative to a patient case, and (c). to increase student communication skills across disciplines. For the assignment, physical therapy students were assigned one case scenario and one nutrition student to interview individually. The nutrition students acted as consultants in a clinical setting. The interactive assignment was considered an effective learning tool for facilitating interprofessional learning by the faculty based on student comments reporting increased understanding of the role of the other discipline, increased communication skills, and an understanding of the barriers to transdisciplinary interaction. Future studies, both quantitative and qualitative, may further identify effects of instructional activities designed to facilitate transdisciplinary health care.