About 150 students and two dozen faculty and instructors gathered at the Holmes Student Center on Feb. 21 for the 10th interprofessional education (IPE) event hosted by the College of Health and Human Sciences (CHHS). Students from programs including athletic training, audiology, marriage and family therapy, medical laboratory sciences, nursing, nutrition and dietetics, kinesiology, physical therapy, rehabilitation counseling and speech-language pathology learned and worked together with the goal of improving patient care and outcomes. 
“It was an inspiration to see students work together on a patient from across healthcare disciplines,” said Anitha Saravanan, assistant professor of nursing and CHHS interprofessional education co-coordinator. “We need to work as team inside and outside of patients’ lives!”
Guest speaker and NIU alum Tertia “Abby” Jeppson, a research speech-language pathologist at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, shared her professional experience working collaboratively with interdisciplinary teams from patient care, research protocols and presentations, and organizational initiatives.
“Abby discussed the importance of interprofessional practice across research and clinical practice,” said Deana Herrman, assistant professor of physical therapy and CHHS interprofessional education co-coordinator. “Students were guided through a video patient case emphasizing the roles of their profession, developing communication and collaboration skills and highlighting patient centered care aligned with their disciplines’ and interprofessional education collaborative’s core competencies.”
Faculty liaisons from the various programs participated in a grand-rounds style session and discussed the case and interprofessional collaboration strategies to create a patient-centered treatment plan.
“We cannot work in silos, and we need to show students early on in their education to become skilled professionals that patients need holistic care,” Saravanan said.
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