Imagine, for a moment, that you are a pharmacist or a physician assistant, and you’re just starting your career.
You are part of a team treating a 64-year-old patient who has come to your hospital following an apparent stroke, with slurred speech and weakness on one side. After receiving treatment for a blood clot, his muscles remain weak, including his facial expressions. He is not sleeping well, and his mood is worsening.
What do you do?
As ACPHS and Albany Medical College students learned during one of their first interprofessional educational (IPE) collaborations on Sept. 9, when they considered such a case study, their role was to contribute advice from their own areas of knowledge – and to rely on each other and other health professionals’ expertise.
For several of the 151 first-year professional pharmacy and PA students, the big takeaway was actually some stress relief. They recognized they would have other experts with them on tough cases and not be alone in determining critical care.
“I realize now I shouldn’t be afraid to reach out to other professionals, who might have important advice,” ACPHS pharmacy student Jonathan Santosh said.
That is precisely the point of such exercises, according to Dr. Amanda Engle, IPE director at ACPHS. Indeed, the collaborative training with students in other health professions, woven throughout the curriculum of four pharmacy professional years at ACPHS, is intended to encourage young pharmacists and other health care providers to move out of their professional silos. It is viewed as a key to achieving patient safety goals established by the National Academy of Medicine.
Back to the case study, the pharmacists, then, would recommend medications to prevent a future stroke and perhaps treat depression. The PAs would perform history and physical examinations, order and interpret diagnostics, prescribe medications, and coordinate care, communication and referrals. And they would both consult with neurologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, dieticians, speech-language pathologists and others to offer. In fact, a panel including most of those real-life working professionals contributed to the Sept. 9 IPE program, describing what they would do for the patient.
As first-year professional students, the emerging pharmacists and PAs were not expected to recommend perfect remedies for the fictional patient as much as to begin to understand their place on a real-world team. IPE expectations progress along with professional training; as schooling continues, more is required. Last year, for instance, pharmacy students in their P3 years, working with medical students, were expected to come up with treatment options during Opioid and Addiction Training Day.
Listening to the panel was eye-opening for some first-year professional students on Sept. 9. The panel included a pharmacist, PA, occupational therapist, physical therapist social worker, speech-language pathologist and dietician.
“Just to know the different responsibilities everyone has on a stroke patient was really interesting to see,” said Albany Med PA student Ella Brownson.
The experience helped ACPHS pharmacy student Vidhika Khemani see her future self on the patient care team.
“Going through our talks with each panelist, I could envision myself acting in this setting,” she said.
The case study exercise with professional panelists has been done at Albany Med in previous years. This was the first time it was hosted at ACPHS, with coordination between ACPHS Professor Dr. Laurie Briceland and Dr. Engle, both pharmacists, and Sara Aoun of the Center for PA Studies at Albany Medical College, a PA and assistant professor.
Pictured above, standing L-R: Santosh and pharmacy students Vivek Lasserre and Will Muzzy. Sitting, L-R: Brownson, Khemani and PA student Jennifer Lin.