When Solving Puzzles and Building Bridges Fall Short: Enacting Landscapes as Ecological Metaphor for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice and Education

Education researchers and clinical educators have advanced the interprofessional discourse. Yet current ways of thinking and acting fall short. We identify two dominant metaphors and their underlying approaches that constrain interprofessional potential and introduce an ecological metaphor that attunes interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) with the messy, unfolding realities of health and healthcare.IPCP AS SOLVING PUZZLES: Rooted in the post-positivist approach, it frames IPCP as complementary static pieces that must be fitted back together in the right configuration, with professionals each holding a separate piece of verified knowledge and expertise. By focussing on abstract knowledge and internal computation, it cannot account for the emergent dynamics of health and healthcare.IPCP AS BUILDING BRIDGES: Grounded in the constructivist approach, it casts professionals as connectors of isolated islands. Confining professionals to their own domains and allowing for connections to be constructed or dismantled at will, it risks reifying identities in constructed realities rather than transforming them.IPCP AS ENACTING LANDSCAPES: Founded in radical empiricist approach, it rejects dualisms and embeds professionals, persons living with disability and their support persons within a single ecology of life. It situates their joint actions in a rich landscape of affordances. We argue that skilled talking and imagining enables them to enact relevant affordances across time and space. This orientation invites professionals, educators, and scholars to think and act with ecological metaphors to advance the interprofessional discourse. In doing so, it supports the development of inclusive, responsive IPCP and opens pedagogical possibilities for interprofessional education (IPE).