Promoting Interprofessional Collaboration Through the Co-Curricular Environment

Interprofessional (IP) experiences are increasing in frequency and scope in health professions education, though little is known about the role of the co-curricular environment in fostering students’ attitudes towards IP collaboration. We examined if participants in IP co-curricular activities of substantive duration held attitudes toward IP learning and collaboration differently than students who did not participate in such activities. We distributed a questionnaire composed of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) and the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) to the 2008, 2009, and 2010 graduates of an academic health center. Respondents indicated if they participated in any of the six substantive IP co-curricular activities offered by the institution. Respondents were grouped by participation in “one or more IP activity” or “no participation.” Independent sample T-tests were performed for each of the RIPLS and IEPS scales to assess differences between those groups. 997 (58.1%) of the graduates completed the survey; 52.9% of the respondents reporting participation in at least one IP activity. Of the seven scales from the two instruments, the mean scores of one scale were significantly different between the two groups: IEPS “perceived need for cooperation” (

Interprofessional Teamwork Skills as Predictors of Clinical Outcomes in a Simulated Healthcare Setting

This is the published version. Copyright 2013 Journal of Allied Health.Teaching interprofessional teamwork skills is a goal of interprofessional education. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between IP teamwork skills, attitudes and clinical outcomes in a simulated clinical setting. METHODS: One hundred-twenty health professions students (medicine, pharmacy, physician assistant) worked in interprofessional teams to manage a “patient” in a health care simulation setting. Students completed the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) attitudinal survey instrument. Students’ responses were averaged by team to create an IEPS attitudes score. Teamwork skills for each team were rated by trained observers using a checklist to calculate a teamwork score (TWS). Clinical outcome scores (COS) were determined by summation of completed clinical tasks performed by the team based on an expert developed checklist. Regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship of IEPS and TWS with COS. RESULTS: IEPS score was not a significant predictor of COS (p=0.054), but TWS was a significant predictor (p< 0.001) of COS. Results suggest that in a simulated clinical setting, students’ interprofessional teamwork skills are significant predictors of positive clinical outcomes. CONCLUSION: Interprofessional curricular models that produce effective teamwork skills can improve student performance in clinical environments and likely improve teamwork practice to positively affect patient care outcomes

What\u27s in it for me? Perspectives from Community Participants in an Inter-professional Service Learning Program

Purpose: This study assessed Interdisciplinary Family Health (IFH) Program participants‘ perceived health outcomes associated with program participation at the University of Florida. Background: Service-learning has emerged as a dynamic way in which students derive practical skills to address the needs of their community. Research has probed student perspectives but has seldom explored community feedback. The Interdisciplinary Family Health Program (IFH) is a mandatory Interprofessional service learning experience designed to foster collaborative teamwork across first year health professions students at UF. Students are assigned in interprofessional teams of four to improve a local volunteer family’s health over the course of four visits in one academic year. Description of Research: Data from twenty-one semi-structured telephone interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed to assess participants’ perceived health outcomes using a grounded theory approach. Emergent themes were conceptualized via selective coding and peer-reviewing. Results: All program participants reported positive health outcomes within a social support construct. Responses fell into four social support domains within a greater framework of bridging student-participant generations: informational support, emotional support, companionship support, and tangible support. Trends in social support domains observed were associated with participant SES. Participants with lower SES levels reported greater needs for health information and access, whereas participants with higher SES levels desired building social relationships with students. Conclusions: Tailoring IPE training to address specific social support domains and SES associations is an opportunity for enhanced participant experiences and perceived health outcomes. Educational planning can utilize social support domain-SES association findings as a guide for students to attune their efforts at improving the overall health outcomes of their target population. Learning Objectives and Related Conference Objectives: Participants will be able to describe qualitative methods of evaluating perceived patient health outcomes in assessing the effectiveness of the Interdisciplinary Family Health Program (Conference Objective 1). Participants will be able to communicate research findings regarding social support domain-SES approaches for enhanced educational programming and perceived patient health outcomes (Conference Objective 3)

The Service Learning IPE Model: Implementation and Results from Qualitative studies

This workshop will discuss the challenges, opportunities and lessons learned around the implementation and execution of the interprofessional education (IPE) program at the University of Florida. Qualitative research will be presented identifying themes from participating health profession programs confirming the important value of IPE initiatives in health profession education. The continued evolution from acute episodic care to chronic long term care in the United States is forcing health care providers to work in a more collaborative manner. The IOM has called for changes in health profession education, specifically highlighting the need of IPE in health profession curriculum. IPE programs in the health science field vary widely. The extent and nature of these programs range from single to multiple sessions, online offerings, or entire Masters of Public Health and One Health programs. The University of Florida (UF) IPE experience, Interdisciplinary Family Health (IFH), is a long standing (17 years) year-long required course for over 700 beginning UF health profession students and 100 faculty facilitators from the six colleges of health. An interprofessional service-learning experience, the central theme of IFH, is learning as a team about the impact of resources and environment on health status. Qualitative studies with newer participating programs revealed several themes regarding students’ experience within the IFH program. These themes included: patients as teachers; seeing through patients’ eyes; affirming career choice; understanding social determinants of health.; understanding role in One Health; understanding role within and between professions. The results of these studies coupled with the shared knowledge of implementing and executing this program will provide a compelling experience for attendees of this workshop. The outline of workshop: Presentation IFH program at UF MHA qualitative study Vet Med qualitative study Lessons learned/Challenges/Opportunities IPE Discussion Poll everywhere - survey IPE themes Facilitated discussion Learning Objectives: Explain the value of IPE programs to health professions education (Comprehension). Describe the significant factors that must be considered/addressed in implementing or executing IPE program (Comprehension). Distinguish the difference between service learning IPE experience and other case based implementation of IPE programs (Comprehension

Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) to Evaluate Interprofessional Student Teamwork in a Longitudinal Interprofessional Learning Experience

Purpose: The purpose of this presentation is to describe the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) teamwork evaluation application and its utility for peer assessment of teamwork behaviors among first year health science students participating in a longitudinal interprofessional service learning experience. Background: Putting Families First (PFF) is a interprofessional service learning experience required for first year health science students at the University of Florida. During PFF interprofessional teams of students complete multiple home visits to local volunteer families throughout the year in addition to completing several small group facilitated sessions. During the home visits, students work with the family to improve the family’s health. Curricular goals associated with PFF include, learning about teamwork, roles and responsibilities and foundational public health topics. Description of Intervention: During 2014-2015, PFF used the CATME application among 696 first-year students administering the assessment formatively at the mid-point of the year and summative at the end of the year. During 2015-2016, PFF incorporated a similar format (N=704) but added a brief required reflection as an ‘interventional’ component following summative data collection and feedback to students. Results: During 2014-2015, 658 of 696 (91.5%) and during 2015-2016, 651 of 703 (92.6%) students completed the formative and summative assessments. 663 students completed reflections in 2015-2016. Data provided a high degree of reliability and increased variance as compared to prior methods of peer teamwork assessment. Comparison of data between cohorts provides evidence that the brief reflective intervention positively impacted students teamwork behaviors in two of three domains: contributing to the team (p=.01) and keeping the team on task (p=.03). Conclusions: CATME is an effective and efficient means for peer assessment of teamwork behaviors when used in an appropriate context. The addition of a reflective exercise had a positive impact on student’s peer evaluations related to critical teamwork competencies. Learning Objectives and Related Conference Objectives: Participants will be able to discuss the online CATME assessment tool’s utility for peer assessment of teamwork in IPE. Conference Objectives #1 and #4. Participants will be able to discuss the online CATME assessment tool as a method of evaluation of students’ teamwork in IPE. Conference Objective #4. Participants will be able to describe learning objectives associated with Putting Families First, unique patient-centered interprofessional service learning for first year health science students. Conference Objective #2

The intersection of Interprofessional Education and One Health: A qualitative study in human and veterinary medical institutions

Interprofessional Education (IPE) and One Health are two common and overlapping frameworks for teaching collaborative practice. IPE is common at human medical institutions, while One Health is more common in graduate and veterinary programs. The connection between IPE and One Health is still being explored both in scholarship and in real-world professional settings. This prospective, qualitative research study examines the intersection of IPE and One Health at institutions that are members of the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) One Health Alliance (COHA). COHA consists of veterinary schools partnered with medical institutions through the National Institutes of Health CTSA funding mechanism with the specific goal of advancing the understanding of diseases shared by humans and animals. Twenty-four interviews were conducted with professionals across eight professions. Subjects noted that some of the biggest barriers to IPE education were awareness, accessibility, efficacy, and implementation beyond the classroom. Competency across multiple institutions and a consistent, validated evaluation tool were noted to be lacking. Interviews highlighted a lack of a shared mental model for IPE and One Health across the medical professions, major hurdles for implementation in professional curricula, and a disconnection between bridging IPE and One Health to the workforce and global challenges. Future work in this area may be focused on assessing the IPE and One Health offerings beyond COHA institutions, giving a more holistic understanding on how IPE and One Health are being deployed. One Health can be operationalized through the adoption of IPE principles and practices into curriculum. This research is critical to educate others on current applications, role, and definitions of One Health and IPE. The ultimate goal of this work is to help cultivate transdisciplinary leaders in the human and animal medicine who will have the skills to solve systemic problems

A Novel Approach to Interprofessional Education: Interprofessional Day, the Four-Year Experience at the Medical University of South Carolina

Background: In order to introduce students to different disciplines and promote interprofessional teamwork, the Medical University of South Carolina developed an innovative educational program, Interprofessional (IP) Day, for all first- and second-year health professions students. The IP Day Committee, composed of representatives from each of the six colleges (pharmacy, nursing, medicine, graduate studies, health professions, and dental medicine), coordinates the day's activities. The morning session (for second-year students only) and the afternoon session (for first-year students only) each begin with a large group meeting where an invited speaker details the concept and implementation of interprofessional teamwork. Following the speaker, students divide into small discussion groups containing at least one student from each of the six colleges and led by a faculty member and student facilitators. The first-year session introduces the role of each discipline (e.g., occupational therapy, nursing). The second-year session promotes teamwork among the professions via a case discussion.Methods and Findings: We assessed the students' satisfaction with the program and measured their attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results from a formative evaluation of the IP Day suggest improved knowledge about other healthcare professions after participating in interprofessional day, particularly for first-year students.Conclusions: IP Day lays the groundwork for our students' successful interprofessional collaborative experience at MUSC, a paramount university goal

FXR1 splicing is important for muscle development and biomolecular condensates in muscle cells

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Smith, J. A., Curry, E. G., Blue, R. E., Roden, C., Dundon, S. E. R., Rodríguez-Vargas, A., Jordan, D. C., Chen, X., Lyons, S. M., Crutchley, J., Anderson, P., Horb, M. E., Gladfelter, A. S., & Giudice, J. FXR1 splicing is important for muscle development and biomolecular condensates in muscle cells. Journal of Cell Biology, 219(4), (2020): e201911129, doi: 10.1083/jcb.201911129.Fragile-X mental retardation autosomal homologue-1 (FXR1) is a muscle-enriched RNA-binding protein. FXR1 depletion is perinatally lethal in mice, Xenopus, and zebrafish; however, the mechanisms driving these phenotypes remain unclear. The FXR1 gene undergoes alternative splicing, producing multiple protein isoforms and mis-splicing has been implicated in disease. Furthermore, mutations that cause frameshifts in muscle-specific isoforms result in congenital multi-minicore myopathy. We observed that FXR1 alternative splicing is pronounced in the serine- and arginine-rich intrinsically disordered domain; these domains are known to promote biomolecular condensation. Here, we show that tissue-specific splicing of fxr1 is required for Xenopus development and alters the disordered domain of FXR1. FXR1 isoforms vary in the formation of RNA-dependent biomolecular condensates in cells and in vitro. This work shows that regulation of tissue-specific splicing can influence FXR1 condensates in muscle development and how mis-splicing promotes disease.We thank the A.S. Gladfelter and J. Giudice laboratories, Nancy Kedersha, and Silvia Ramos for critical discussions; Eunice Y. Lee for technical help; Dr. Stephanie Gupton (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC) for donation of WT C57BL/6J mouse embryos; and Marcin Wlizla and National Xenopus Resource (RRID:SCR_013731) for their help in maintaining adult frogs and other important technical support. This work has been funded by a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Junior Faculty Development Award (to J. Giudice); a Nutrition and Obesity Research Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pilot & Feasibility Research grant (P30DK056350 to J. Giudice); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill startup funds (to J. Giudice); the March of Dimes Foundation (5-FY18-36, Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Award to J. Giudice); and NCTraCs Pilot Grant (550KR181805) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, through Grant Award Number UL1TR002489 (to J. Giudice), National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences grants (R01-GM130866 to J. Giudice, R01-GM081506 to A.S. Gladfelter, R35-GM126901 to P. Anderson, K99-GM124458 to S.M. Lyons, R25-GM089569 and 2R25-GM055336-20 to E.G. Curry); Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholars program (A.S. Gladfelter), and National Institute of Health grants R01-HD084409 and P40-OD010997 (to M.E. Horb). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.2020-09-1