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