Featured guest speaker and Children’s Medical Services Regional Medical Director Dr. Jeffrey Brosco, who is also Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Miami, opened the session with a presentation concerning ethics, cost and the social determinants of health, followed by Dr. Antoinette Hill from the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas, who spoke about inter-professional health care teams and understanding the family perspective. Closing speaker Dr. Kenneth Goodman, founder and director of the UM Bioethics Program and Director of the Florida Bioethics Network, addressed the combined group of medical and doctor of nursing practice students on the role of ethics boards and committees. Dr. Goodman then facilitated discussions regarding three different ethical case scenarios developed by the DNP students.
Over the past year, several exciting collaborative initiatives between the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies and the Miller School of Medicine have brought nursing and medical students together for cooperative learning experiences, with the aim of enhancing mutual respect, trust and collaboration between the two health disciplines. The first joint ethics session, held in November 2012 for nursing doctoral and medical students, drew rave reviews. Then, in the summer of 2012, a first-of-its-kind collaboration convened accelerated nursing and third-year medical students for a course designed to teach them how to work in teams to enhance patient safety outcomes.
Disability at the University of Kansas
“Today, nearly all health care-related educational associations are calling for an inter-professional approach to preparing tomorrow’s health care providers”, says Mary Hooshmand, assistant professor of clinical nursing, who invited the Miller School of Medicine and UM Bioethics Programs faculty to speak to doctoral students enrolled in her NUR 655 (Health Care Management, Economics, Financing and Ethics) course. “The School of Nursing and Health Studies, together with our colleagues and educational partners at the Miller School and the Bioethics Program, have taken this message to heart. We hope to continue designing and implementing inter-professional educational experiences that will not only expand the clinical competencies of our future nurses and physicians, but also serve to promote an increased sense of collaboration between them that will one day extend from the classroom into their professional practices”.
Thirty doctor of nursing practice, one philosophy, and eight medical students participated in the successful October 11th inter professional education initiative.
