Purpose Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has become a dominant idea in both medical education and clinical care as reflected in its incorporation into competency-based educational frameworks and hospital accreditation models. This study examined the published literature to explore whether a shared IPC discourse underpins these current efforts.

Method Using a critical discourse analysis methodology informed by Michel Foucault’s approach, the authors analyzed an archive of 188 texts published from 1960 through 2011. The authors identified the texts through a search of PubMed and CINAHL.

Results The authors identified two major discourses in IPC: utilitarian and emancipatory. The utilitarian discourse is characterized by a positivist, experimental approach to the question of whether IPC is useful in patient care and, if so, what features best promote successful outcomes. This discourse uses the language …