Collaborating enriches health care curriculum
0Staff Report
More than 300 students from health and social care fields came together on the University of Pikeville campus with a common goal: to increase communication among health care professionals. The two-day interprofessional education (IPE) event was designed as an opportunity for students, educators and professionals to work together to provide quality care.
Participation in interprofessional education events is incorporated in the curriculum of students who are completing their coursework and will soon be entering the health and social care fields. Students from the University of Pikeville-Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (KYCOM), the Appalachia College of Pharmacy, UPIKE’s RN-BSN and associate degree nursing programs, UPIKE social work program and Frontier Nursing University’s family nurse practitioner program participated in the sessions.
Representatives from each discipline participated in working groups to discuss their responsibility in a medical case study and learn more about the roles other medical professionals play in providing patient care.
“The driving force behind the IPE is to learn from, and with, other professionals,” said Genesia Kilgore-Bowling, MSW, CSW, social work program director and assistant professor of social work at UPIKE. “IPE is a remarkable teaching and learning tool.”
The pilot program began in 2013 on the UPIKE campus when university nursing, social work and osteopathic medicine students came together as a mock health care team to create care plans for case study patients. Now a bi-annual event, the interprofessional education program has since grown with the addition of the Appalachian College of Pharmacy and Frontier Nursing.
“Activities like these are truly the best thing we can do to improve communication in health care and learn to appreciate what each does,” said William T. Betz, D.O., MBA, FACOPP dist., senior associate dean for osteopathic medical education and chair of the department of family medicine at KYCOM..