ABSTRACT
Interprofessional education (IPE) has been described as occurring ‘when students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcome’. IPE has been mandated internationally across health curricula and the development of interprofessional competency-based education has been identified as a priority in many tertiary institutions. Historically, IPE within health curricula has been opportunistic with little consideration given to formation of professional identity. Professional identity is developed throughout a person's life and career, and this identity has three distinct elements: in being members of groups (social identity), having certain roles (role identities), or being the unique biological entities that they are (personal identities). With increasing exposure and utilisation of IPE amongst healthcare students, all three aspects of their identity formation are altered. Subsequently, their professional identity can be well formed and even rigidly set, long before they graduate from their respective degrees into the healthcare environment, affecting their sense of belonging and the ability to simultaneously identifying themselves with both their own profession, and that of the interprofessional community Therefore, the need to develop a suitable professional identity and professionalism, in relation to one's colleagues as well as themselves, is essential for ensuring optimal patient care from practitioners working as part of a healthcare team.
