3鈥�2鈥�1 IPE Offerings

Dr. Jack Rasmussen & Elinor Kelly 

jack.rasmussen@dal.ca & elinor.kelly@nshealth.ca

The Burns Interprofessional Education course introduces learners to the collaborative care required to support patients with burn injuries. Through three sessions, students will develop a foundational understanding of burn care, explore the roles of different health professions, and apply interprofessional collaboration skills to a burn patient case. 

The course begins with a synchronous online introductory session covering core burn-care concepts, including burn depth, initial assessment, treatment principles, wound care, rehabilitation, and recovery. This session will also introduce learners to the interprofessional collaboration competencies that will be applied throughout the course. 

In the second session, learners will participate in an in-person applied session focused on the acute/admission phase of burn care. Students will rotate through stations facilitated by members of the interprofessional burn-care team, including nursing, occupational therapy, medicine, physiotherapy, psychosocial care, and clinical dietetics/nutrition. Learners will then work in interprofessional teams to develop an early care plan for a patient with a major burn injury.

The final session will focus on rehabilitation, discharge planning, community reintegration, and long-term recovery. Learners will hear from a burn survivor and a representative of the Nova Scotia Firefighters Burn Treatment Society to better understand the lived experience of burn recovery and the role of community supports. Students will then work in interprofessional teams to develop a coordinated medium- and long-term recovery plan for the same patient case.

This course is designed for students from multiple health professions interested in learning how interprofessional collaboration shapes burn care and recovery. 

Dr. Sarah Fraser

sarahfraser@dal.ca

Gender-affirming care is an essential component of equitable, inclusive healthcare, yet many healthcare professionals receive little to no formal training on how to support trans and gender diverse patients (TGD). This IPE mini course provides students with a foundational understanding of gender-affirming hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery through two, self-paced online modules developed for healthcare professionals in the Atlantic Provinces. These modules will provide clinical knowledge and practical tools from an interprofessional lens to better meet the needs of TGD patients. Students will reflect and engage in discussions through online forums to share and learn from each other. 

After completing the asynchronous components, students will attend a hybrid, in-person, synchronous interprofessional panel discussion featuring healthcare providers actively engaged in providing gender-affirming care across various professions as well as individuals with lived experience. Students will work through clinical cases in small groups guided by interprofessional facilitators. This session will highlight real-world perspectives and provide space for dialogue around inclusive, affirming practices.

Elise Sammons

elise.sammons@dal.ca

Climate change has been identified as the most significant threat to global health in the 21st century because of the many ways that it impacts health: increases in vector-borne disease, poorer air and water quality, extreme weather conditions, and impacts on mental health. In addition to the increasing health impacts from our changing climate, the ability to deliver healthcare is also impacted by the climate crisis. Extreme weather events such as wildfires and floods have forced the evacuation of hospitals and other healthcare facilities and disrupted key supply chains. These impacts are being felt around the world, but according to the World Health Organization 鈥渢he people whose health is being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are the people who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it: people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities鈥�. 

Paradoxically, the healthcare sector, which is intended to maintain health, is a significant contributor to climate change and environmental waste. There is a need for new approaches to delivering equitable, high-quality and environmentally sustainable care and healthcare professionals from all disciplines must be part of the solution. This interprofessional course introduces health professions students to the field of planetary health, highlighting its connections to global health and health equity. The course invites students into an interdisciplinary conversation about how to collaboratively address health inequities both locally and globally in ways that are sustainable into the future.

Dr. Anu Mishra

Anuradha.Mishra@dal.ca

Kristen Tuttle RN

kristen.tuttle@nshealth.ca

This IPE course will help provide students with information on the history of abortion in Canada and current access to abortion. The course will focus on recent changes in Atlantic Canada including the removal of the Therapeutic Abortion Committee in NB in 2014; the creation of the abortion clinic in PEI in 2017; and the removal of referral requirement and introduction of centralized intake in NS in 2018. Students will understand medical abortion was approved by Health Canada in 2015, became widely available in 2017, and nurse practitioners now prescribe medical abortion in every province and territory in Canada. 

By participating in this mini course students will: 

• have reflected upon their beliefs, values and assumptions relative to contraception, reproductive autonomy and abortion, and learned the relevance of this reflection on their professional role of support with people who have experienced unplanned pregnancy and reproductive coercion 

• better understand the personal, cultural and institutional contexts of reproductive control and their effects on people seeking care from health care professionals  

• have enhanced consciousness regarding politicized action that can be taken to counter the personal, cultural and institutional contexts of reproductive control 

Dr. Jeff Karabanow & Meagen Bowers

jeff.karabanow@dal.ca  &   m.bowers@dal.ca

The purpose of this course is to introduce the student(s) to the 鲍鱼tv Social Work Community Clinic in all its intricacies 鈥� highlighting its grassroots genesis, its engagement with the university and government, its relationship building with other community services both formal and informal, and its deep focus upon interprofessional health student practice education. The course focuses upon the ways in which the Clinic offers services from an anti-oppressive/social justice framework; how it collaborates with other services in the city; how it has developed an intentional interprofessional lens of service delivery; and last, its important emphasis upon health students鈥� integration of theory and practice. Each session will be 1.30 hours in length.

Throughout the course, learners engage with interprofessional theory as well as deep embodied interprofessional practice鈥�(i.e., exploring team functioning/communication strategies, relationship-focused care services/client centred services, etc.) through guest lectures, readings assigned to the course, and case examples.

Dr. Paul Santerre

js002243@dal.ca

Healthcare innovation is an interprofessional endeavour where a gap in the healthcare system is fixed by identifying a product or process. It is interprofessional because it requires considering the needs and perspectives of multiple stakeholders when solving a problem. For example, creating and implementing a new surgical medical device involves consulting and working with surgeons, nurses, biomedical engineers, manufacturers, and procurement specialists, just to name a few. Often, the founders of these innovations are healthcare providers who have experienced or seen the problem themselves. Developing innovation as a skill at the trainee stage will better equip future healthcare providers to identify problems, come up with creative solutions, and create action plans to implement them.鈥�鈥� 

In this mini-course, students will learn tangible skills on how to identify healthcare problems, and work in interprofessional teams to come up with solutions and a plan to validate the need and feasibility of their solutions. The course will include workshops on design thinking, validation, and pitching, as well as a hands-on health innovation challenge, where student teams will identify and solve a healthcare problem.鈥�

Diane MacKenzie

Diane.mackenzie@dal.ca

Diane MacKenzie

Diane.mackenzie@dal.ca

Diane MacKenzie

Diane.mackenzie@dal.ca

Dr. Anu Mishra

Anuradha.Mishra@dal.ca

Diane MacKenzie

Diane.mackenzie@dal.ca

Dr. Sarah Fraser

sarahfraser@dal.ca

Dr. Jeff Karabanow & Meagen Bowers

jeff.karabanow@dal.ca  &   m.bowers@dal.ca

The purpose of this course is to introduce the student(s) to the 鲍鱼tv Social Work Community Clinic in all its intricacies 鈥� highlighting its grassroots genesis, its engagement with the university and government, its relationship building with other community services both formal and informal, and its deep focus upon interprofessional health student practice education. The course focuses upon the ways in which the Clinic offers services from an anti-oppressive/social justice framework; how it collaborates with other services in the city; how it has developed an intentional interprofessional lens of service delivery; and last, its important emphasis upon health students鈥� integration of theory and practice. Each session will be 1.30 hours in length. 

Throughout the course, learners engage with interprofessional theory as well as deep embodied interprofessional practice鈥�(i.e., exploring team functioning/communication strategies, relationship-focused care services/client centred services, etc.) through guest lectures, readings assigned to the course, and case examples. 

Dr. Paula Rushton 

prushton@dal.ca

Personal mobility is a fundamental human right, according to Article 20 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. For people with mobility disability, a wheelchair is essential to enable participation in all aspects of life, to exercise personal rights, to ensure and maintain health, and to facilitate inclusion, equity, and participation. Regrettably, mobility is not always a given for those who require a wheelchair. In 2023, the World Health Organization launched new Wheelchair Provision Guidelines in which a 4-step wheelchair provision process is recommended, including select, fit, train, and follow up. These guidelines aim to support equitable access to appropriate wheelchairs for all those in need. The recommended process involves collaboration amongst several health care disciplines (e.g., occupational therapy, physiotherapy, medicine, recreation therapy, social work). Regrettably, one step in particular, train, is often overlooked.鈥�鈥� 

Participation in this IPE will provide students with a hands-on opportunity to learn about the Wheelchair Skills Program. It will be used as the content to demonstrate various health care professionals鈥� roles within the context of the train step. It will facilitate an understanding of mobility as a human right. Practice-based skill development, simulated patients, and facilitated debriefing will provide leaners with content specific to a range of wheelchair skills, across diagnoses, and settings. The perspectives of multiple health care professionals will be included and interprofessional opportunities and challenges related to training wheelchair skills will be explored and discussed. Within Interprofessional Teams, students will learn about, from, and with each other.

Kristen Tuttle RN

kristen.turtle@nshealth.ca

This IPE course will help provide students with information on the history of abortion in Canada and current access to abortion. The course will focus on recent changes in Atlantic Canada including the removal of the Therapeutic Abortion Committee in NB in 2014; the creation of the abortion clinic in PEI in 2017; and the removal of referral requirement and introduction of centralized intake in NS in 2018. Students will understand medical abortion was approved by Health Canada in 2015, became widely available in 2017, and nurse practitioners now prescribe medical abortion in every province and territory in Canada. 

By participating in this mini course students will: 

• have reflected upon their beliefs, values and assumptions relative to contraception, reproductive autonomy and abortion, and learned the relevance of this reflection on their professional role of support with people who have experienced unplanned pregnancy and reproductive coercion 

• better understand the personal, cultural and institutional contexts of reproductive control and their effects on people seeking care from health care professionals  

• have enhanced consciousness regarding politicized action that can be taken to counter the personal, cultural and institutional contexts of reproductive control 

Dr. Jeanna Parsons Leigh

J.ParsonsLeigh@dal.ca

Dr. Paul Santerre

js002243@dal.ca

Healthcare innovation is an interprofessional endeavour where a gap in the healthcare system is fixed by identifying a product or process. It is interprofessional because it requires considering the needs and perspectives of multiple stakeholders when solving a problem. For example, creating and implementing a new surgical medical device involves consulting and working with surgeons, nurses, biomedical engineers, manufacturers, and procurement specialists, just to name a few. Often, the founders of these innovations are healthcare providers who have experienced or seen the problem themselves. Developing innovation as a skill at the trainee stage will better equip future healthcare providers to identify problems, come up with creative solutions, and create action plans to implement them.鈥�鈥�

In this mini-course, students will learn tangible skills on how to identify healthcare problems, and work in interprofessional teams to come up with solutions and a plan to validate the need and feasibility of their solutions. The course will include workshops on design thinking, validation, and pitching, as well as a hands-on health innovation challenge, where student teams will identify and solve a healthcare problem.鈥�