The role of mental health as a 'threshold concept' for promoting patient-centred care for inter-professional health students

When a student chooses a career, they already have views/stereotypes about what that role constitutes. This also applies to students who choose a career in any health profession. This theoretical paper likens mental health to a threshold concept within interprofessional learning and, with it, the act of engaging in learning together as 'troublesome knowledge', which challenges their originally held notion of what it is to be a health professional both positively and negatively. It is felt that, although the development of professional identity remains progressively evolutionary through one's career, this paper intends to consider the journey of troublesome knowledge for the health professional student appreciating mental health within interprofessional learning as a necessary challenge, in order to rediscover the true meaning of being a health professional. Challenging the previously held assumptions of the health professional students and their professional acquisition of knowledge about their chosen career and understanding of mental health is not only important to develop their skills within a varied team, but vital to the centrality of the patient.