Imagining a continuing interprofessional education program (CIPE) within surgical training.

In recent years increasing attention has been paid to issues of professionalism in surgery and the content and structure of continuing professional development for surgeons; however, little attention has been paid to interprofessional education (IPE) in surgical training. Imagining the form(s) of IPE and/or continuing interprofessional education (CIPE) programs within surgical training requires serious attention to 2 fundamental issues--the discourses of professionalism in surgery and the professional culture of surgery, as shaped and expressed within the clinical setting. We explore the possibility that concepts of professionalism within surgery may be in conflict with the tenets of interprofessionalism held by other health and medical professionals. We believe that if any rapprochement is to occur between the concept of professionalism in surgical training (and within the everyday clinical culture of surgical subspecialties groups and their professional institutions) and broader discourses of interprofessionalism circulating within health care institutions, there is a pressing need to understand and deconstruct this conflict from the point of view of surgery.