Introduction

This chapter, in line with the aims of Part Six (see Figure 1.1), provides an insight into how ethical mindfulness can be developed as healthcare students experience interprofessional dilemmas within workplace learning. Healthcare students learn professionalism and how to become professionals through the formal, informal and hidden curriculum. This chapter begins by utilising theoretical and research literature to introduce the concepts of healthcare professionalism, professional identities and interprofessional learning. The case study draws on an exemplar narrative from an extensive research programme exploring healthcare students’ lived experiences of professionalism dilemmas to demonstrate how students make sense of their experiences and developing identities through narratives of interprofessional dilemmas. The chapter, using multiple lenses such as moral identities and moral distress, concludes by discussing the interweaving of professional identity formation and interprofessional hierarchies, roles and conflicts, and what this means for the education of healthcare students so that they are better prepared for the interprofessional healthcare workplace.

The professional development of healthcare students is paramount in health professions education (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2009; General Medical Council (GMC), 2013). Although students are taught good professional practice throughout their formal curriculum, they are commonly exposed to professionalism dilemmas in workplace learning, including ethical lapses such as witnessing the physical and emotional maltreatment of patients (Erdil and Korkmaz, 2009). Such dilemmas can cause students moral distress, which can happen when students know the ‘right’ ethical course of action but feel unable to act in that manner (Jameton, 1984). Dilemmas can therefore impact negatively on students’ developing professionalism (Kushner and Thomasma, 2001). This chapter is not concerned with formal interprofessional education initiatives, of which many are reported in the literature (Lennon-Dearing et al, 2009). Instead, it is interested in how healthcare students learn with, from and about others through interprofessional workplace learning experiences. It is through these experiences (and dilemmas therein) that students come to learn what it means to demonstrate professionalism and how to become professionals. Ultimately, such interprofessional workplace learning experiences should help to prepare students to work with a wide range of healthcare professionals, to understand their roles within the wider healthcare system and to experience team-based collaborative care prior to their graduation (for example, Thistlethwaite, 2012).