2016 Highlight Stories: These stories highlight showcase the great work, service and achievements of our preeminent faculty and students in 2016.
In November 2015, student leaders in Phi Lambda Sigma met with Director of Student Leadership Programs, Nanci Murphy, to brainstorm how best to use a $2000 leadership grant awarded to create opportunities for pharmacy student leadership.
By the end of the meeting, the students had an ambitious idea: to create a health fair for the community—an interprofessional one that included pharmacy students as well as groups from across the UW Health Science disciplines—and to do it within just two months.
There was just one small problem: none of them had organized a health fair from scratch before.
The students reached out to faculty, administrators and students across UW’s Health Sciences. “It was daunting, especially when we started talking with people who had organized health fairs before. But people were really generous, sharing their time and expertise,” said Nick Larned, one of the three lead organizers. “In a couple of weeks, we booked a site and connected with students in medicine, dentistry, audiology, and physical therapy and had a plan.”
“UWSOP is regularly held up as a national leader for interprofessional education because we’ve been doing it so well for so long.”
–Jennifer Danielson, Assistant Professor and Director of Experiential Education in Introductory Practice
The New Year’s Health Fair took place on Sunday, January 24, 2016, in Magnuson Park, near multiple transitional and lower income housing units. The students saw about 50 patients the morning of the NFL playoffs. They took advantage of the time to learn more about each other and their training. “The great part of this event,” said Assistant Professor Jennifer Danielson, Director of Experiential Education in Introductory Practice for UWSOP, “was that the students learned so much about each other’s disciplines and had the chance to share their skills and knowledge. Pharmacy students showed first year medical students the basics of how to take blood pressure and glucose testing. Dental students examined pharmacy students.” Co-organizer Arianne Duong shared, “I had no idea how much you could learn from a thorough dental, head and neck exam. Dentists are a great first line check for blood pressure problems.”
Interprofessional Education (IPE) has been a key part of UWSOP’s curriculum for over twenty years, ahead of other schools of pharmacy and health sciences. “When I first applied to the UW for pharmacy, I didn’t fully understand the advantages of an IPE curriculum,” said co-organizer Phoebe Stracener. “But through my training, I see the difference it makes to be so close to the other health sciences. It will be less intimidating when I’m on my rotations next year, now that I have learned how differently each of the professions approach health care problems and know what each of us brings to the table to help patients.”
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