Excellence in health care professions

Dr Sandra Buttigieg, director of the Institute of Health Care (IHC), introduced the symposium commemorating its 15th anniversary on the theme "Working Together to Attain Excellence in the Health Care Professions" in a very appropriate manner with emphasis on teamwork.

The IHC was set up in 1987 to develop diploma, degree and post-graduate courses in nursing, midwifery and other professions allied to medicine. These include communication therapy, environmental health science, medical laboratory science, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry and radiography. The IHC is also fortunate to have health services management as one of the disciplines under its umbrella.

There is no doubt that since its inception, the IHC has contributed greatly to the academic advancement and professional standard of these health care fields.

Dr Buttigieg said that "It is our strategic vision at the IHC to bring together these disciplines not just from the administrative point of view, but also philosophically, in our endeavor to develop effective professional health care teams. The importance of team working as a means of providing a holistic service has steadily grown in importance over the past years. Sir Charles George, former chairman of the Education Committee of the British General Medical Council and former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Southampton, referred to teamworking as 'an essential prerequisite to modern clinical care'.

"Traditionally, health care professionals have been taught to think and focus on their respective discipline with little regard to what the other professions are contributing toward patient management. I believe that this symposium is an important milestone in the history of the IHC in two ways. First, with respect to the role that the IHC can play, in bringing health care professionals to work together.

The second is the need to provide the right forum for our students and graduates to present their projects and therefore to help them to enter the world of research with confidence."

Dr Buttigieg concluded: "With this in mind, I would like to welcome our two guest speakers Professor Clive Mulholland from the University of Ulster and Dr Carol Borrill from Aston University and look forward to their presentations. I would also like to thank Professor Kenneth Wain and Dr Anthony Fiorini, distinguished academics from the University of Malta, for accepting to participate in the discussion panel. Last but not least, I would like to congratulate our students and graduates for their interesting projects and for accepting the challenge to share them with us."