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Seton Hall University Health and Medical Sciences
Eric LeGrand

Core Signature Experiences

The Center for Interprofessional Education in the Health Sciences (CIEHS) sponsors a series of experiential learning opportunities for School of Health and Medical Sciences (SHMS) students to engage in Interprofessional Education (IPE) . Through IPE, they learn about, learn from and learn with each other. There are five SHMS IPE Core Signature Experiences:

New Student Orientation

IPE Core Signature Experience 1 - Empathy in Healthcare

Program Goals

  • Create an awareness of the role of empathy in health care
  • Create a foundational awareness of our school's perspective on IPE
  • Create an awareness of the impact IPE has on IPP
  • Create an awareness of the impact of verbal and nonverbal communication

Program Details

Each summer, SHMS' New Student Orientation features an IPE component in which all incoming health sciences graduate students participate. The goal is to introduce the students to the concepts of IPE and interprofessional practice, which is achieved through a faculty-led presentation, such as a video and dialogue. For example, students viewed a documentary short about an individual with Autism Spectrum Disorder and his wife, and then discussed the dynamics through an interprofessional lens.

Interprofessional Perspectives Series

IPE Core Signature Experience 2 - Impact of Medical Errors and Team STEPPS

Program Goals

  • Increase awareness of the importance of addressing medical error management in health care by promoting effective collaboration and communication on patient-centered care teams

  • Provide an opportunity for health professional students to collaboratively engage in discussion and reflection specific to the impact of team structure and practices when working on patient-centered care teams

Program Details

Students will watch a though-provoking video case about the impact of medical errors from the perspective of a woman who experienced these issues twice in her family. Then, faculty will discuss the TeamSTEPPS approach, a strategy that healthcare professionals use to manage the occurrence of medical errors. Students will work collaboratively and with faculty mentorship to address a medical error in a paper case, applying the TeamSTEPPS approach and reflecting upon their own roles on the team. Following a faculty-led discussion about team dynamics, students will evaluate their own and others’ perceptions of their roles on the healthcare team.

Town Hall Discussion

IPE Core Signature Experience 3 - Fostering an Inclusive Athletics Environment for a Young Adult with Autism

Program Goals

  • Foster communication and teamwork across the professional programs' faculty and students
  • Explore the clinician’s role as the patient's advocate across professions

Program Details

The Town Hall Discussion is an interactive opportunity to explore the varied roles and responsibilities of a healthcare team collaborating to address a series of medical and cognitive issues presented by a young adult with autism who wants to participate in sporting activities. Through videos, live demonstrations, interprofessional group work, faculty mentorship and a summary roundtable, students will develop a deeper understanding of what it means to be an advocate for their patients and clients, and the importance of effective communication and teamwork in all aspects of healthcare.

Collaborative Practice

IPE Core Signature Experience 4 - A Parental Perspective on the Therapeutic Process

Program Goals

  • Increase awareness of the importance of building partnerships in healthcare and promoting effective collaboration and communication on patient-centered care teams
  • Provide an opportunity for health professional students to collaboratively engage in discussion and reflection specific to the value of developing partnerships in the healthcare arena and the impact of verbal and nonverbal communication of team members to the patient’s outcome

Program Details

Healthcare professionals function as part of a team that includes the patient and, often, family members. As practitioners seek to understand their roles on healthcare teams, much can be learned from listening to patients’ family members’ perspectives regarding the therapeutic process. In this workshop, students will hear the perspectives of a panel of parents specific to the therapeutic journey they participated in for their children. Students will construct a personal reflection statement based upon the panel presentation and how it impacted their perception of their role as a healthcare professional. Students will then share their reflection statement with their colleagues at their assigned table, looking for commonalities and differences in their perspectives that might further underscore the value of teamwork. Students will then collaboratively construct a question for the panel participants. At the end of the session, all questions will be collected, collated and distributed to the panel for their response post-conference.

IPE Symposium

IPE Core Signature Experience 5 - Exploring Interprofessional Teamwork and Collaboration through a Community Partnership

Program Goals

  • Promote and apply critical thinking skills across interprofessional student groups for the evaluation of and development of an evidenced-based patient plan of care
  • Promote and express insightful dialogue among and across interprofessional student groups, faculty and master clinicians
  • Promote an awareness and appreciation of the existence of interdependence that exists among healthcare professionals when working under a patient-centered care model
  • Promote an awareness of the necessity for lifelong learning for practicing clinicians in the healthcare arena

Program Details

Video case presentations will be unfolded by clinicians from the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, an SHMS clinical partner organization. The cases will focus on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Following these presentations, students will collaborate, with faculty mentors, on a problem-based learning (PBL) exercise regarding the TBI cases. Master clinicians will briefly present their main conclusions and recommendations regarding the PBL exercise associated with the TBI case; an open format question-and-answer period will follow. Students will conclude with a brief discussion of what they have learned as a result of this collaborative IPE experience.