Incoming students shared a meal, played a game of Pictionary focused on roles/responsibilities of various health professionals, listened to faculty share stories about their respective professions’ scope of practice and how they impact patient care at the second annual new student interprofessional orientation.

The program was held August 29 and included students from UT Health San Antonio’s Schools of Health Professions, Long School of Medicine, Nursing, and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, as well as from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin.

During the event, Dr. William Henrich explained that our institution is taking the lead on interprofessional education.

“We know that the future of our health care systems require us to work collaboratively in teams and in fact the first group to point this out to us were our graduates who came back and told us that …when they got into practice that teams of people deliver the best care safely to patients,” he said in a pre-recorded video. “To accomplish this goal we must understand each other’s work.”

Dr. Joseph Zorek, the director of Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration echoed this concept and explained how a series of Institute of Medicine reports led to a nationwide movement to ensure all health professional students were competent in interprofessional teamwork. The 1999 report “To Err is Human” sparked this movement by highlighting that thousands of preventable deaths occurred each year due to a lack of collaboration and communication among health care professionals.

“The theme [at today’s event] was the patient,” said Dr. Lark Ford, member of the Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration Faculty Council and faculty member in the School of Nursing. “I want you all to think if you were the patient and what you would want to be done.”

This idea of thinking about the patient while delivering care resonated with Alex Bui, third year student from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin.

“We are an interprofessional team and that includes the patient. We need to realize that even though we have the power—we need to share that power with the patient so that they are empowered as well,” he said. “We also can’t forget that this includes the patient’s family as well.”

To highlight the different roles and responsibilities in each profession, the students played a game of Pictionary where they guessed various professions and then heard from faculty members from each school including: Dr. Sadie Trammell Velasquez from the Long School of Medicine; Dr. Mosh Farokhi from the School of Dentistry; Dr. Peter Guarnero from the School of Nursing; Dr. Gustavo Almeida from the School of Health Professions; Dr. Rebecca Moote from the School of Pharmacy (UT Austin) and Dr. Keith Krolick from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Tamara Medina, a first year Medical Laboratory Sciences student said that the orientation was a good reminder that interprofessional education plays a big role in each of the students’ paths.

“I really like this idea of interprofessional where we get all the programs and students together because hopefully we will stay in touch and this will help us in our studies and our future,” she said.

The orientation was supported by a grant from the Student Services Fee Committee. The event was organized by Dr. LeKeisha Johnson from the Office of Student Life, Dr. Lark Ford from the School of Nursing and the Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration Faculty Council, Dr. Rebecca Moote from the School of Pharmacy and Charlotte Anthony from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Dr. Joseph Zorek from the Office of Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration. 

Read an article about the first orientation, “UT Health San Antonio Hosted First Ever New Student Interprofessional Orientation.”

All photos:

https://www.facebook.com/UTHealthGradSchool/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2971886419504814