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Dr. Schwind is Associate Professor and Dr. McCay is Professor, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing; Dr. Martin is Associate Professor and Chair of Master's Program, Child and Youth Care, Ryerson University, Toronto; and Ms. Metersky is Graduate Student, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, University of Western Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.
This study was funded by the Faculty of Community Services, RU Interprofessional Initiative at Ryerson University, without which the creation of the Advanced Theraputic Communication: An Interprofessional Perspectice Course would not be possible.
The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
The concept of teams within health care arose in the literature more than a century ago, when it was first published in several medical journals in 1909 ( Cooter, 2004 ; Henderson, 2006 ). As health care teams evolved, they began to include a variety of health professions at the exclusion of patients or clients ( Weisz, 2005 ). During the past decade, much has been written on interprofessional care teams ( Baldwin, Royer, & Edinberg, 2007 ; Brown et al., 2010 ; Hall, 2005 ; Molyneux, 2009 ; Oandasan et al., 2009 ; Reeves & Lewin, 2004 ; Sohi, Champagne, & Shidler, 2015 ; Suter et al., 2009 ; Zwarenstein & Reeves, 2006 ), but relatively little literature exists addressing person-centered care within interprofessional practice ( Blickem & Priyadharshini, 2007 ; Hallin, Henriksson, Dalen, & Kiessling, 2011 ; Herbert, 2005 ; Howard, Agarwal, & Hilts, 2009 ; Lawrence, Bryant, Nobel, Dolansky, & Singh, 2015 ; Metersky & Schwind, 2015 ; Pomey, Ghadiri, Karazivan, Fernandez, & Clavel, 2015 ).
A significant element of person-centered care is effective therapeutic communication between care providers and clients ( McCormack & McCance, 2010 ). The latter not only encompasses the care provider but also is relevant across professions and practice contexts. Despite the importance of effective therapeutic communication, few resources or courses exist where interprofessional graduate students can learn how clients may experience therapeutic communication within the context of an interprofessional care team that includes the client in a person-centered manner. To fill this gap, our collaborative team (i.e., Nursing, Social Work, Child and Youth Care, and a community partner) created an innovative interprofessional graduate elective course that explores advanced therapeutic communication (ATC) with...