Competency based inter-professional practice is fundamental for advancing occupations in healthcare fields. Different perspectives and strategies for inter-professional collaboration to enhance outcomes in clinical, teaching and research settings will be presented. Effective communication strategies between professionals with different roles and responsibilities for effective collaboration will be discussed. The speakers will discuss enabling mechanisms (education/curriculum, institutional support) and barriers (different understandings of language and culture, professional stereotypes) to inter-professional collaboration. The focus of the session will be the intricacies of communication between team members, patients, and populations to clearly provide support to others. In addition, the speakers will highlight theoretical frameworks for cultivating empathy, professionalism and humanism.