#  Interprofessional Ethics: Collaboration as a Professional Responsibility

**Presentation Date:** 03 October 2026

**Duration:** 1:32:06

**Return to:** [AuDacity Archive](https://audiologist.org/audacity-archive)

Modern health care requires professionals to make decisions collectively rather than in isolation. Interprofessional collaboration is not only a quality-improvement strategy but also an ethical imperative grounded in patient welfare, autonomy, dignity, and professional integrity. Communication failures, particularly during transitions and handoffs, contribute to adverse events, while evidence suggests interprofessional learning can reduce mortality and adverse outcomes. Ethical collaboration requires patient-centered care, practicing within one’s expertise, recognizing limitations, communicating effectively, and sharing accountability. This presentation examines how professional identity, power differences, communication, and organizational culture influence ethical teamwork and patient safety.

**Attendees will be able to:**

1. Explain why interprofessional collaboration is an ethical obligation and essential to patient safety.
2. Identify and analyze how communication failures, hierarchy, role ambiguity, competing obligations, confidentiality, resource allocation, and disagreements about patient goals can create ethical and patient-safety risks.
3. Develop practical strategies to strengthen psychological safety, mutual respect, effective communication, and shared accountability within clinical teams.

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**Speakers:**

- Michael Page, Au.D.