Chelsea Kuykundall, ‘Doah Staff Writer
March 18, 2015

What do Nursing, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant and Occupational Therapy have in common? Besides all being a part of the medical team, they were also all the schools of health represented at Shenandoah University’s first ever Inter-professional Case Competition. Held on Feb. 28, S.U.’s Inter-professional Education (IPE) Committee organized the competition, modeling it upon the University of Minnesota CLARION Case Competition.

CLARION is a University of Minnesota student organization dedicated to improving health care through inter-professional collaboration. Since 2002, CLARION has hosted a local student case competition for health professional students, before expanding the competition to the national level in 2005. With the competition, they enable students “to achieve a 360-degree perspective on patient safety in today’s health care system and how it might be improved,” according to the University of Minnesota website.

Eight teams presented their root cause analysis for a complicated stroke case to an auditorium of faculty mentors, division directors and fellow students. The teams were comprised of three to four students from at least two disciplines, ranging from Pharmacy third years, first and second years in Physician Assistant, Physical Therapy second years, first and second years in Occupational Therapy and seniors in Nursing. Their 20-minute analyses were then evaluated by a panel of inter-professional judges, rating them on presentation content, presentation style, and questions and answers.

Internal judges for the competition included Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Pharmacy Practice Penny Shelton, Pharm.D.; Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business Assistant Professor of Healthcare Management Seth Chatfield, Ph.D.; and School of Health Professions Dean Timothy Ford, Ph.D. Local community members Cheryl Dumont, Ph.D., RN, CRNI, director of nursing research and the Vascular Access Team at Winchester Medical Center; and Charles Devine, M.D., Health Director of the Lord Fairfax Health District, completed the panel.

The winning team consisted of second-year physical therapy student Krista Eskey, second-year occupational therapy student Sarah Marshall and second-year physician assistant studies student Rebekah Payne. Together with a fourth team member who has yet to be selected, the students will represent Shenandoah University in the 2015 CLARION National Case Competition, held at the University of Minnesota. From Apr. 17 through Apr. 18, the S.U. students, along with 15 other universities, will be presenting on the stroke case, with awards of team scholarships for the top teams.

The competition went very well thought the chair of the IPE Committee Joseli Hagemann. “It was nice to see colleagues supporting their fellows in the competition, even all programs directors came,” Hagemann remarked on the turnout for the competition held on campus. For the IPE committee, it was one more opportunity to offer an event for the health professions to work together, and they plan to hold the S.U. Inter-professional Case Competition again next year.