Due to inclement weather conditions, the University of Southern Indiana campus will remain closed, and all in-person classes, activities and on-campus events are canceled Tuesday, January 27. Online classes will continue asynchronously unless students are notified by their professor. Essential personnel only should report to work. If you are unsure of your status, contact your supervisor. More information and updates at USI.edu/emergency.
Three of our undergraduate students, Jenna Biggs (Health Services, Gerontology Concentration), Josh Hill (Health Services, Public Health Minor), and Todd Waugaman (Health Administration), recently participated in the Minnesota Northstar Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program's Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition alongside peers from across the U.S.! This unique opportunity brought together 23 teams of graduate and undergraduate students from diverse disciplines to tackle a challenging case study: developing a comprehensive care plan for a 75-year-old woman living in a rural area with complex medical issues. Paired with a medical student, dental student, and respiratory therapy student from universities nationwide, our team collaborated weekly online to create an interdisciplinary plan addressing:
Their efforts culminated in a detailed, narrated VoiceThread presentation and a live Q&A session with judges via Zoom. Special thanks to their coach, Amy Scott, Case Manager for Generations, Area Agency on Aging in Vincennes, Indiana, for her guidance and expertise and Paige Miller who served as a judge for the competition and is an Options Counselor for Generations. This competition showcased the power of teamwork and innovation in caring for older adults. Congratulations to all involved!
"Working as a coach was enjoyable for me! I enjoyed getting to know the students as they were all operating from different facets in the medical field - their diverse input was interesting to listen to. I appreciated the opportunity to participate and I hope to be invited to do this in the future."
"Working with other professions to complete a task, especially in other areas of the US, makes for a tough task. Interprofessional cooperation is essential for patient care because it allows for information between different providers to follow a patient in real time allowing treatments to be retroactive instead of just throwing different things at a patient not knowing what else is happening to them."
"Being a Judge for this competition was a great experience for me and I would love to continue doing it in the future. I enjoyed getting to judge/review multiple presentations. Each team had their own unique way of presenting their presentation and it was fun to see how everyone addressed the case."
“It was a blessing to be a part of USI's first GWEP Competition. I hope future students and community members will enjoy the opportunity to participate in these interprofessional disciplinary events that foster teamwork, collaboration and patient centered care.”
"To me the biggest takeaway from the competition is understanding how important interprofessional collaboration is when caring for a patient and people in different fields can have extremely valuable input on problems that are not necessarily part of their specialty."
Interested in learning more or participating in next year's competition? Reach out to Leah Flake for more information:
