Who is in the Room? Reimagining Interprofessional Education for Equity, Inclusion, and Impact

Date: Saturday, 26 September 2026 | Time: 0900 – 0945 | Venue: The NAK Auditorium, Academia (SGH Campus)

Track Type: Plenary

Speaker:

Overview:

Interprofessional education (IPE) is widely promoted as essential for preparing a health workforce capable of responding to complex population needs. Yet, in practice, IPE is often implemented in ways that overlook the very contexts in which health professionals learn and work inadvertently ignoring the context leading to a simple but critical question: Who is in the room?

Using examples from diverse health system settings, the presentation examines and characterises persistent challenges in implementing IPE, including the integration of communities into learning spaces, the influence of culture and language on collaboration, and structural barriers related to equity and inclusion. Furthermore, health workforce shortages, financing constraints, and increasingly unstable health landscape and how they shape what is possible in IPE design and delivery is explored.

Rather than focusing on idealised models, the session foregrounds lived realities and power dynamics that determine whose voices are heard, whose knowledge is valued, and whose needs are prioritised in interprofessional learning. The presentation argues that reimagining IPE for tomorrow’s world requires moving beyond co-location of professions toward intentional inclusion of communities, attention to context, and alignment with health system realities. Essentially, the participants are invited to reflect critically on their own educational spaces and consider practical strategies for designing interprofessional education that is responsive, inclusive, and capable of producing meaningful impact.