Dear Editor,

I write to draw attention to the importance and impact of interprofessional education (IPE) within the complexity of today’s healthcare settings. The aim of IPE is to improve healthcare professionals’ teamwork and communication skills, prevent medical errors, maintain patient safety, and provide cost-effective quality healthcare services.¹

IPE is an ideal teaching method that improves patient-centered care and effective teamwork.² Through this education, different professional roles and perspectives are better recognized,³ the quality of care is promoted, patient safety is maintained, and the coordination between the members of the healthcare team is strengthened.¹ In addition, IPE contributes to the development of professional identity, the socialization of students, and learning to mutually respect each other’s boundaries by being aware of the roles, authorities, and responsibilities of other healthcare professionals.⁴

Current curricula and practices result in insufficient opportunities for interprofessional collaboration to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills in basic communication and teamwork, thereby leading to stereotyped perceptions among future healthcare professionals.¹Moreover, only after graduation do students have the opportunity to get to know other health professions in the clinical field. However, it is not easy to improve the perception and attitude of a healthcare professional who has not yet acquired competence in interprofessional collaboration within the healthcare system.³ Therefore, IPE is essential for healthcare students to develop competence in interprofessional collaboration before graduation because it offers them the opportunity to prepare for the complex dynamics of healthcare that await them in their career.^{2, 4}Although IPE is an effective method, it is challenging to plan and implement.³These challenges include an insufficient number of health professionals, incompatible curricula, an imbalance in the number of students, and scarce resources.⁴Additionally, IPE is a new concept in Türkiye and is not included in the curriculum at the desired level. Therefore, there is a need to integrate IPE into educational programs in Türkiye and to measure its results through research.

The main cause of many medical errors and health accidents is communication problems between healthcare professionals.⁵Traditional unprofessional education focuses solely on the development of collaboration and communication skills between patient- nurse or patient- physician, and does not focus on communication among healthcare professionals, resulting in the exacerbation of these medical errors.¹ Therefore, IPE, which focuses on interaction and communication between healthcare professionals, should be integrated into nursing curriculum and theoretical and clinical education at all levels.⁴