What?
I attended another interdisciplinary student focus group session, similar to Health Connect, this time focusing on Foundations of Ethical Practice. In my auditorium, I was one of 5 dietetic students representing our program and profession alongside medical, dental, nursing and midwifery students.

Prior to this session, we were to complete an online module and fill out an Interprofessional Ethics Grid based on our respective profession’s Code of Ethics. During the session, we referred back to this as well as our own profession’s Code of Ethics to compare the differences. In addition to this, our groups discussed specific case studies and relayed our input back to the entire group.
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So What?
I enjoyed completing the online module because it provided universal information for all healthcare professions on a broad scale and contained relevant and applicable information which was easily referred back to during our session. It was interesting to read the Code of Ethics for the Dietetic Profession in Canada and to later discuss how it both differs and overlaps with the other professions.

We had a fabulous facilitator who was informative, inquisitive and gave us plenty of time to discuss amongst our small groups. This session was valuable because many of us had not properly read our own code of ethics for our profession. This was a great way to not only familiarize ourselves with our own but to learn of the code of ethics for other professions. The discussion portion was valuable because each student had at least one differing component within their code of ethics, which brought forward different perspectives and narratives when handling the given case studies. This provoked questions and lead to discussions regarding ethical practice within healthcare as a whole, gathering perspectives from each program.
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Now What?
Since my session, I have run into three fellow students, two nursing students and one dental student. It has sparked conversations and a potential networking opportunity between us that would have otherwise not existed before these two IPE sessions. I look forward to re-visiting and applying the knowledge I have gathered through this session as well as in the Code of Ethics for the Dietetic Profession in Canada throughout my internship and practice as I understand its importance in patient centered care.

The only issue I faced was that because we were all first year students in our programs, it was difficult to pull on personal experiences and examples during our discussions since we are all relatively new to our fields. I hope that a similar 4th year (and perhaps 5th year) session takes place to extend further discussion on the foundations of ethical practice as we become more immersed into our respective fields.

I understand that this was the last of our mandatory IPE sessions, but I have since received an e-mail regarding an upcoming panel on the topic of Eating, Feeding, and Swallowing (Dysphagia) and plan on attending. I hope that my fellow classmates will join me as this topic is greatly relevant to our profession and will allow us to meet potential future colleagues in the process.

• Year 3