Preparing Nursing Students for Interprofessional Practice: The Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Oncology Palliative Care Education.

Interprofessional educational experiences for baccalaureate nursing students are essential to prepare them for interprofessional communication, collaboration, and team work. Nurse educators are ideally positioned to develop and lead such initiatives. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and implementation of an interprofessional education (IPE) project involving students in nursing, medicine, social work, and chaplaincy. The Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Oncology Palliative Care Education project uses team-based palliative oncology education as the framework for teaching students interprofessional practice skills. The need for IPE is apparent, but there are very few comprehensive, successful projects for nurse educators to use as models. This article describes the development of the curriculum by the interprofessional faculty team. Issues encountered by nursing faculty members as they implemented the IPE experience are discussed. Solutions developed to address the issues and ongoing challenges are presented. This project can serve as a model of a successful IPE initiative involving nursing students.