UConn’s Committee on Interprofessional Excellence in Healthcare (CIPEH) hosted its 10th annual Interprofessional Education Welcome Event for nearly 480 students on October 11, 2024. Students and faculty representatives from 3 campuses across 11 health profession programs: athletic training, audiology, clinical psychology, dental medicine, dietetics, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, social work, and speech-language pathology participated in the remote, live event. Students completed pre-work prior to the event, attended the large group event, and participated in small interdisciplinary groups to learn about the potential impact of interprofessional collaboration on health care improvement; identified the unique roles, skills and contributions that each profession brings to a care team; and practiced interprofessional communications with students studying other professions. They collaborated on example patient scenarios in a “escape room” format.
We want to highlight SLHS’s participation! Twelve first year Au.D. students and 17 first year MA SLP students participated in the event! Madelyn Kulman and Victoria Randazzo, both first year MA SLP students volunteered to be student leads and reported out to the large group! After the event, Ms. Kulman was reported to state, “I had so much fun working with everyone and learning about all the different professions today.”
From the Audiology side, Dr. Thomas Hinchey participated in planning and was a co- Emcee of the live event, while Dr. Christine Haines participated in the planning of the escape room and was a faculty lead during the event.
From the SLP side, Professor Nicole W. Gallagher is on CIPEH’s leadership as secretary, participated in general planning of the event, and was the subcommittee chair for the “escape room” planning. Professor Jean McCarthy and Professor Lucinda Soares Gonzales were faculty leads during the event to support student participation.
