Announcement: Journal of Interprofessional Care Baldwin Award Winner

Journal of Interprofessional Care Baldwin Award Winner


Introduction
The Baldwin Award is in recognition of DeWitt ‘Bud’ Baldwin Jr.’s lifelong and distinguished contribution to interprofessional care. It was first awarded in 2009 for the best article of the 2008 volume of the Journal of Interprofessional Care. Each year since, a panel of judges recruited from the Journal’s editorial board assesses all the original articles published in a single volume and decides upon the winner based upon five key criteria for quality. Below, we detail the process and outcome of the most recent winner of the Baldwin Award - Volume 29.


The adjudication process
The judging panel consisted of three Journal editorial board members: Joanne Goldman (associate editor), John Toner (advisory panel member) and Scott Reeves (editor-in-chief). In judging the quality of work published in the Journal we used established criteria to select the winners. Each article was judged on the following:


-How it adds significantly to the evidence base informing interprofessional education/practice worldwide
-Its potential to have a significant impact on theory informing interprofessional education/practice
-Its potential to have a significant impact on research design in interprofessional education/practice
-Its clarity and cogency (i.e. written well, clearly argued)
-How it shows innovation in the field of interprofessional education/practice.


Only articles (not commentaries, IPEP guides, short reports, editorials) were considered for the Baldwin Award. Articles authored or co-authored by any of the judges were removed from consideration. Articles are scored on a scale from 1 to 10 on each criterion listed above. The six Journal issues that made up Volume 29 were divided equally among the judges so we each individually assess around 20 articles. However, one of us (SR) read all the articles to get an overall sense of quality and ensure parity across scores. Results from the initial assessment were collated and shared between the judges. We took the top two articles from each judge to the next round where we re-assessed each. Following discussion of these papers we arrived at our results.


The Baldwin Award winner
We came to a unanimous decision that the winners of this year Baldwin Award are the authors of the following series of papers:


Sarah Sims, Gillian Hewitt & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of collaboration, pooling of resources, learning and role blurring in interprofessional healthcare teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.939745


Gillian Hewitt, Sarah Sims & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of communication, influence and behavioural norms in interprofessional teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.941458


Sarah Sims, Gillian Hewitt & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of a shared purpose, critical reflection, innovation and leadership in interprofessional healthcare teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.941459


While this decision is unusual, as we have only ever presented this award to the authors of a single paper, the judges felt that the articles, considered together, provide key insights for the interprofessional field. The series actually spans four papers (the first was published in volume 28)
that collectively report findings from the first realist synthesis of interprofessional teamwork. The series collectively provides important conceptual, empirical and theoretical insights into key contextual factors, mechanisms and outcomes related to the functioning of interprofessional teams.


Runners Up
We want to also congratulate the two runner up papers which the judging panel felt were very strong contributions to the Journal:


Sirpa Saario, Kirsi Juhila & Suvi Raitakari, “Boundary work in inter-agency and interprofessional client transitions” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2015.1040490


This paper offers a thoughtful analysis of boundary work in inter-agency working using the social science theories of Thomas Gieryn and Andrew Abbott.


Daniel G. Dominguez, David S. Fike, Eric J. MacLaughlin & Joseph A. Zorek, “A comparison of the validity of two instruments assessing health professional student perceptions of interprofessional education and practice” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.947360


This paper which systematically compares the use of two interprofessional scales (Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams, Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education) offers a useful contribution to the statistical literature.


Honourable Mentions
In addition, it was agreed that honourable mentions should go to the following two papers:


Krist Thomson, Sue Outram, Conor Gilligan & Tracy Levett-Jones, “Interprofessional experiences of recent healthcare graduates: A social psychology perspective on the barriers to effective communication, teamwork, and patient-centred care” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2015.1040873


This paper offers a useful empirical insight of professional identity development using the lenses of social identity and realistic conflict theories.


Simon Kitto, Stuart Duncan Marshall, Sarah E. McMillan, Bill Shearer, Michael Buist, Rachel Grant, Monica Finnigan & Stuart Wilson, “Rapid response systems and collective (in)competence: An exploratory analysis of intraprofessional and interprofessional activation factors” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.984021


This paper provides a helpful analysis of rapid response systems using sociological theory, including socio-cultural approach developed Charles Bosk and medical dominance theory developed by Elliot Freidson.


Congratulations to all the authors whose papers have contributed to improving the scholarship of the interprofessional field. These represent the seven best papers of over 70 published in volume 29 of the Journal of Interprofessional Care.


Brief reflections
While it was agreed amongst the judges that the standard and quality of articles published in the Journal continues to improve, it was noted that there were a few areas which authors should pay attention to in constructing and presenting their interprofessional work:


-As we noted last year, there was relatively limited engagement with theory in the papers we considered this year. Once again, it was agreed that work could be improved if authors engaged more with the theoretical literature to develop their study and/or employ theories to explore/explain the nature of their empirical data.


-Again, while qualitative papers were generally better with using theory, a number of these papers could have been improved by paying more attention to quality issues (e.g. reflexivity, member checking, use of iteration) to provide a more informed understanding of the trustworthiness/credibility of their work.


- In addition to the standard phrase about securing formal ethical approval, it would be useful for authors to provide further information related to how issues of consent, confidentiality and anonymity were dealt with in their work.


Our involvement in the Baldwin Award was again an insightful process. We would like to congratulate the winning authors, runners-up and authors with honourable mentions on their excellent articles. We would also like to acknowledge all authors who publish their work in the Journal of Interprofessional Care for continuing to make the Journal such a vibrant and important medium of exchange and innovation in our field.


Scott Reeves, Joanne Goldman & John Toner
Baldwin Award Judges, Journal of Interprofessional Care

Book Review: Assessing Competence in Professional Performance across Disciplines and Professions

Book Review: Assessing Competence in Professional Performance across Disciplines and Professions With a foreword by Lee S. Shulman

Innovation and Change in Professional Education (13th Edition)
Paul F. Wimmers & Marcia Mentkowski. Switzerland: Springer, 2016
488 pages
ISBN 978-3-319-30062-7


This 13th volume, Assessing Competence in Professional Performance across Disciplines and Professions is part of a series dedicated to introducing innovation and discussing issues in professional programs. Each book focuses on a different theme with the assessment of competence in professional education is the focus of this edition.

The book opens with a foreword by Lee S. Shulman then presents twenty-one chapters by various authors. The content of each chapter is similarly organized with headings and subheadings. Each chapter begins with an Abstract, followed by a box titled Takeaway which highlights the main ideas of the chapter. The chapter concludes with References preceded by a box titled Issues/Questions for Reflection which contains thought-provoking considerations. The first and last chapters are introductory and concluding chapters by the editors. The chapters’ in-between each focus on a subject in more depth. Some chapters are literature reviews while others present case studies and empirical research, such as questionnaires.

The grouping of similar themed chapters provides structure. The first three chapters introduce performance assessment. Chapters four through eleven present issues supported by research on a particular discipline. Chapter eight is the exception, which discusses the capability of undergraduate students’ across disciplines to transfer learned knowledge and skills across courses and time. Chapter four and six discusses the reliability, validity, and authenticity of assessments to real world applicability in medical programs. Chapter five focuses on the importance of professional competence-based assessment in engineering programs. Chapter seven focuses on the inclusion of performance assessment in law programs. Chapter nine addresses the importance of feedback and consistence rubrics in nursing programs. Chapter ten and eleven focus on the assessment of critical thinking in health care professionals. Chapters twelve through fifteen address issues in teamwork from effective assessment to the psychometrics to a literature review and research into what comprises a collaboration in healthcare professionals. Chapter sixteen and seventeen focuses on skill development of faculty, for example basic concepts of student assessment and leadership training and assessment. Chapter eighteen through twenty present various issues. Chapter eighteen discusses whether programs in the medical field should offer training in being humane. Chapter nineteen compares and contrasts assessment in time-based programs verses competency-based programs.

Chapter twenty deliberates the development and implementation of the Uniform Bar Examination. In the last chapter, Paul Wimmers and Marcia Mentkowski tie together the main themes to discuss the assessment required to prepare graduates of professional programs successfully enter the work force.
This book is of interest to the faculty of undergraduate and graduate professional programs across many disciplines. In particular, chapter recommendations that highlight additions and changes in the curriculum may be of importance to faculty and education coordinators. In addition, case studies and results of research focus on medical, law, engineering, and nursing programs. Faculty of these programs may find the topics discussed most relevant and applicable, although the concepts discussed may generalize to multiple disciplines.

Review by: Anureet Gill, Graduate Student, Concordia University of Edmonton