In Fall 2020, year 1 students across all GMU undergraduate programs participated in their early clinical exposure interprofessional education (IPE) sessions from September to December 2020. IPE case discussions and experiential site visits continue in Semester 2 from February to April 2021. It is best to start IPE early in the curriculum. The early clinical exposure IPE activity integrates healthcare professionals and students in the GMU Academic Health System. The University campus has three hospitals; general hospital, dental hospital, and physiotherapy and rehabilitation hospital.
The main challenge faced in conducting IPE across programs were in the scheduling and assessment. Enhanced use of digital education and healthcare helped us try it for the first time in year 1 across all healthcare programs at GMU. The activity was a combination of synchronous and asynchronous interactions between different stakeholders in healthcare. Students from different health professions programs learned from, with and about each other. Faculty and preceptors from multiple GMU Colleges participate as online discussion and site visit supervisors.
Vice Chancellor for Quality and Global Engagement and Dean College of Pharmacy Prof. Sherief Khalifa commented: “Our plan is to embed IPE activities starting from your one and to follow up with similar activities in every semester of pharmacy medicine and nursing programs. Assessment of IPE activities is important for students to value of working together. Our next step is to engage in IPE research with the purpose of improving our IPE strategies and to share what we are doing with the rest of the world. GMU Center for Interprofessional Education, Research and Practice (IPERP) will play a key role in enhancing IPE at all levels”.