Substack: Parallel Play Is Not Interprofessional Education

What I have seen most commonly, is that we bring massage therapy students to give “a massage” to medical students or others learning to be healthcare professionals (nurses, physical therapists). Maybe our students talk about what they’re doing during that massage, but we don’t prepare our students to engage with the students from these other disciplines as peers.

When we learn together, we hear each other’s questions and it opens otherwise unavailable opportunities to understand each other’s inspiration and concerns. We see how different our approaches are, but we also learn that there is a surprising level of overlap and, thereby, opportunity for collaboration. When we learn like this, we build trust and relationships that last into practice and which foster long-term collaborative care dynamics.