I’ve always been passionate about how interprofessional collaboration can maximize patient outcomes. As a student physical therapist, I’ve seen how an effective team of varying professions can help patients reach their goals, and even learn something about other health disciplines in the process. I’ve always imagined the most effective patient education setting to be a meeting that involved all health disciplines, so patients can ask questions in real time and healthcare professionals can coordinate appropriate care, all within the same conversation. However, conversations with multiple different providers rarely occur (especially in outpatient settings) purely due to the scheduling demands of the healthcare system.
Word on the Wards (WOW) provides a unique experience in which these conversations can take place. During my time with this program, I was able to collaborate with student pharmacists, medical students, nursing students to provide patient-centered health education. The sessions were structured to foster student success—allowing ample time for chart review, role-play practice sessions, and clear communication from program leaders. During patient interactions it was very valuable to have a partner with a different area of specialization, not only so patients could obtain information from different realms of healthcare, but also so I could grow and learn about their area of expertise. This translates into clinical practice beautifully; in that I will always have this experience to fall back on when considering other areas of care that my patients may benefit from. I would highly recommend this program to learn and practice interprofessional collaboration and perfect the skills of delivering efficient and effective patient education.
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