An important part of IPE was participation as each member was required to be fully committed to taking part in the task in order for it to succeed. I felt that I contributed well to various aspects of the task. As a team we all worked together to produce most parts of the poster and all worked together on the design therefore I think that everyone contributed equally to the task. We also worked together at one of the meetings to write the part of Joe’s sister. We each took responsibility for writing a small piece about how one of the members of Joe’s team would be involved in his care. I think that I took responsibility for organising a lot of the meeting and finding out what days we were all free to meet. I also feel that I contributed by being very flexible with the times that I was available and whenever we agreed to do some work I had it completed within the agreed timeframe.
During the task, there were some aspects that went well and also some that went not so well. Some things that I think went well were firstly; the design of the poster. We came up with an interesting and original idea quickly and we stuck to this idea. This allowed us to get on with other things and it was helpful that we all agreed on this. Another thing which went quite well was the fact that we all got on and worked fairly well together as a team. There weren’t any disagreements between members of the group and when we agreed to do a piece of work all of the group members done it in time.
However, whilst making the poster there were also some things which did not go well. From the beginning we had agreed to mainly contact each other by text, and had agreed that we would always reply as quickly as possible but I felt that this was not really kept to at all times by the other members of the group as at times it could take hours or even days to get a reply. I also felt that at times it was difficult to arrange meeting which suited everyone as people were reluctant to come into university on days when they had no timetabled classes, therefore there were very few times which were suitable for everyone. Meetings were also quite difficult to arrange as people did not want to commit to other work during the exam period and also people had placements so were unavailable for most of this time.
An important part of the task involved working in a team and in our team we all took on roles. I think that I took on a mostly organisational role in terms of the fact that I took responsibility for organising a lot of the meetings, especially in the beginning when we were unsure of what to do. Other members of the team took on more of a leadership role as they tended to direct what happened at the meetings and made most of the decisions regarding what work was to be done and who would do it. At meetings I took a quieter role but still participated in all the discussions and took part in all decisions about what was to be included in the poster and its design.
In order for us to construct the poster successfully there were many skills that we needed to utilise. I think the most important skills used were communication skills and facilitation skills. The organisation involved both face to face contact and contact via phone, text message and emails, therefore having good communication skills was key. In general, I felt that the task was not particularly difficult and the main problems arose from trying to organise time to do the work, whist people were on placement and during exam time. Therefore good organisation skills were also very important in order to arrange meetings that suited everyone’s timetables. Good listening skills were also needed to be used within the team so that everyone’s ideas were heard and so that no one was left out or talked over. I think that the team as a whole used these skills effectively as we had very little problems in carrying out the task and I think we done it quite efficiently.
Doing the task made me learn some important things about teamwork in general. It was a good opportunity to observe the roles that people take on when doing a group work task, how some people tend to take the lead and how others take a quieter more observational role. The task also allowed me to learn a lot about group dynamics, it was interesting to see how the group interacted with each other. Our group got on very well with each other and there were no major disagreements at any time. If there had been it would have been interesting to see how this would have been dealt with and how we would have overcame the problem. An important point that doing the task made me realise was that when working in a team people have to be flexible and have to be willing to adapt to suit other people so the task can get done.
In general, I felt the task went quite well, however if I was to do the task again there are a number of things that we could have done differently. One thing would have been to start the task slightly earlier, as due to various factors, we did not end up beginning the task properly until several weeks after the IPE classes. This meant that we felt quite pressured and rushed to complete the task and although we did manage to complete the task within plenty of time, this added extra stress so starting earlier would have taken this pressure off. Another thing which we could have done would have been to explore some other ideas for the design of the poster, as we thought of an idea straight away and stuck to it. In some ways this was good as it allowed us to think about other things, but it might have been a good option to think of other ideas in case we thought of a better idea.
In order to think about my experience while making this poster and to reflect on this I used the reflective cycle by Gibbs (1988). I think that this was a worthwhile and helpful thing as it helped me plan the essay and also to gather my thoughts about the experience in general and what I have learned. Another useful tool for reflection was Queen Margaret’s ePortfolio tool as I was able to use this like a diary to keep a note at what happened at each meeting and to use as a point of reference.
In conclusion, I think that IPE has been a very positive experience for me. It has allowed me to gain an insight into what other health care professionals do and also provided me with a good opportunity to work in a team and see the difficulties that occur. I also found the task useful as it allowed me to research what the multidisciplinary team does in a community mental health setting, as this was something I had no previous experience of. Overall I enjoyed the IPE experience and I think that I contributed well to the task.
References
Gibbs G (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.
Tuckman, Bruce W. (1965) 'Developmental sequence in small groups', Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384-399
