Students attend workshop for inter-professional medical team building
The Central Michigan University Inter-professional Practice and Education (IPE) Committee is working to eradicate discrepancies experienced from poor medical team communication.
IPE Committee leads efforts to design, develop, and deliver sustainable, high impact, collaborative team learning and practice opportunities for students and practitioners in health care professions.
The committee hosted 500 students from three different Michigan institutions—CMU, Mid-Michigan Community College and Ferris State University— Jan. 21 in the University Center Rotunda Room for an inter-professional convention.
The convention aimed to give students a clearer understanding of what it means to work on an inter-professional medical team.
“Inter-professional care has been a hallmark of health care over this past decade,” said Elizabeth Mostrom, Chair of inter-professional education and practice committee at CMU.
“There is ample evidence that shows when there is good communication between inter-professional practitioners the quality of care improves, effectiveness of care, and the cost goes down,” Mostrom said.
It isn’t easy getting physicians on board with nurses, and nurses on board with physical therapists, and speech pathologists, and social workers. That is why CMU is training its future professionals now as students, instead of when they are already practicing, said Mostrom.
Students were mixed and matched amongst different schools and different professions at round tables. Each table was presented with a discussion topic, mostly regarding different health professions, and given time to openly discuss amongst themselves.
Caleb Schultz, a second year pharmacy student at Ferris State, said the convention was what he expected and then some.
“I expected this event to give a better understanding of what other health professionals do," Schultz said. "Gaining that appreciation for what others do helps the team work better. Even in the short hour and a half we were here, I felt I made a lot of good connections with other future professionals.”
Mostrom said no key-note speakers were invited because students are lectured enough. Instead, the committee wanted to promote active student-to-student learning which, in theory, will turn into professional-to-professional collaboration down the road.
“It’s important to learn from each other so we know each other’s (professional) discipline and how we can work with other health professionals to strengthen patient care,” said Jessica Gardon-Rose, Director of Pysician Assistant Education at CMU.
“Professionals must have humility. It takes humility to acknowledge other people might know more than you know," said Susan Grettenberger, Social Work Program Director.