Every health care profession has a different culture which includes values, beliefs, attitudes, customs and behaviours. Educational experiences and the socialization process that occur during the training of each health professional reinforce the common values, problems solving approaches and language/jargon of each profession. Interprofessional collaboration is a key factor in initiatives designed to increase the effectiveness of health services currently offered to the public.

Monrouxe et. al. (2017) stated that medical graduates are unprepared in multidisciplinary team-working, interaction competence, personal preparedness, emergency management, understanding ethical/legal issues and ward environment familiarity.

In traditional health care study programmes one can notice the changes, which emphasize professional oneness and orientation excusively for the developement of special profesional competences (Bruneviciute, et. al., 2005; Gonzalo et. al., 2017). There is a current trend in the education of health care professionals towards interprofessional learning in both undergraduate and postgraduate settings. One of the reasons interprofessional learning promoted is to foster positive attitudes and links between different health care team professions.

During 2004-2017 the longitudinal research investigating educational possibilities for the development of the intercultural communication of health care team was performed at Lithuanian University of Health Sciences and Vytautas Magnus University. The first stage of the research pointed out that new paradigms of learning require competences allowing for activity in an interdisciplinary (intercultural) team, and the development of these competences requires a purposeful creation of the environment for the learning of intercommunication (Brunevičiūtė & Večkienė, 2003; Brunevičiūtė et al., 2004). During the second stage the analysis of the curriculum of the training and education of physicians and social workers revealed the main principles of the changes of the aims of professional education, assuring the constant renewal of these aims as well as the flexibility and effectiveness of the curricula in general. Shared values, social competences and participation of the patient/client are the basic elements of interdisciplinary collaboration and essential for the development of physicians as  team members (Brunevičiūtė et al., 2005).

When analyzing  how an intercultural/interdisciplinary team functions we stated that in practice in health care team (physician, social worker, nurse,....) of the department of the hospital there is no correct understanding of real role of each team member (Bogdonova, Večkienė, Brunevičiūtė, 2008).

Based on these results, the designing and implementing of new Social Work Management Master programme at Vytautas Magnus university was performed (Eidukeviciute, Veckiene, Bruneviciute, 2013), and from 2017 – 2018 school year a new course „Interdisciplinary collaboration“ for students of medicine, nursing, occupational therapy and physical therapy was started.

It is important that the concept of collaboration in health care team should be well understood, because the increasingly complex health problems faced by health professionals are causing more interdependence.

The problem of the study – practical manifestation of educational possibilities of the new study course for the development of the interprofesional (intercultural) collaboration/communication.

The aim – to reveal the creation of the innovative environment of the new course as well as educational and practical possibilities for the development of the intercultural communication of multicultural health care team members.

The objectives of the study were the following:

1. To analyze the theoretical possibilities to implement the aims of the course.

2. To investigate the practical possibilities for the development of interprofessional communication competences of multicultural health care team.

The methodology of the research is based on the theories of the capital (Gendron, 2004), the social capital (Coleman, 2005), and the social construction of the reality (Berger &Luckman, 1999). The one part of the study presents the content analysis of the curriculum of the course „Interdisciplinary collaboration“. The metod used in this part is the analysis of the formal aspects of the curriculum: aims, content, methods, teaching resources (departments). The other part of the study presents the attitudes of the students participating in the course. In this part, a qualitative study using the focus group method was performed in order to reveal the differences between initial understanding on intercultural communication and achieved knowledge and skills after the course. The data was collected through a semi-structured group interview. Participants of the qualitative study are the 1st – 3rd year students of medicine, nursing, occupational therapy and physical therapy study programmes of specialized university of health sciences (about 150 students).

The analysis of the formal aspects of the curriculum reveals the relations of the main didactic elements of the educational environment and theoretical (teachers‘) approach towards the creation of the course. The qualitative study of the focus group reveals practical (students“) approach towards differences between initial understanding of the intercultural communication of multicultural health care team members and achieved knowledge and skills. The study focused on how students recognize the educational environment of the course, which peculiarities were highlighted when reflecting the learning process. Based on this study, the practical recommendations will be conducted for the university units.

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