Dave Plough
Welcome to Collaborative Conversations. I'm your host Dave Plough and joined as always by our director, Dr. Barbara Maxwell.

Barbara Maxwell
Welcome everyone. Hope you're back for part two of the embedding conversation with Zach and Tanya.

David Plough
Yeah, this is the second half of that episode. Whether you just finished the first episode with Zach and Tanya and decide you want to jump right back in or you took a break or maybe somehow this came up on your feed first. There is another episode with Zach and Tanya that you can find wherever you came across this, be it our website, our social media, or just your regular podcast listening.

We're not going to do a super long intro for this because we already did one an episode ago. Barbara, is there anything you'd like to add before we start rolling and let Zach take this away?

Barbara Maxwell
Just to say that it's been great that Zach and Tanya really just launched in when they had their conversation about embedding into professional learning into the curriculum. And the fact that it takes two podcasts to kind of address it really shows the depth of information that they shared and how much they had in common and how much they enjoyed the conversation between each other.

Dave Plough
So we really hope that you enjoy the conversation too. with that, we were going to go ahead and continue this conversation between Dr. Weber and Tanya Coltrain.

Zach Weber
We would be remiss, you know, if we didn't talk a little bit about logistically, what does it take to pull this off? don't know, Tanya, maybe if you want to provide some perspective of, know, what does it look like to try to manage the number of students that you have within your program and maybe just let us know, let our audience know of kind of how many students are you kind of constantly working with, if you will, to be able to integrate into various IPE opportunities throughout their training and their education.

Tanya Coltrain
So like, as I had mentioned earlier, we have 480 students that we admit yearly. And so if we're talking multiple sessions in Carson, synchronous Zoom, all of those things that if we were trying to get all of those students in just by ourselves, we'd make it fit into our courses, right? But there is a whole different set of logistics when you have clinical sites that are saying your students can be here on Thursday and Friday. And then we have an IPE event that comes up and they say, well, the College of Barnacy is only available on Thursday or Friday.

Right? So when we're talking about logistics, it's not all on us. All the choices can't be on us because then we don't have those partners that we really want to participate with. So finding the space, statistically, to get people into those sessions is tough. I'm like, I'm not going to act like it's some easy thing that we do over here. I have, you know, I have a team of people, one of our staff who just knows their schedule in and out, everybody's schedule works with me and we try to find those spaces.

The IPE Center hears from us a lot and we're saying, hey, we can't do Thursday, but we really want to get these learners in if anybody else available on Wednesday. And so that collaboration, having someone who's the point person, which there is on the IPE side and for me, that's something that's new in the last two years, I believe that I've been doing this kind of role.

And it has made a huge difference, right? Because they know what I'm trying to do when I'm trying to coordinate. I know who to reach out to and having that connection together is key. So speaking out early, I'm talking to my faculty and saying, hey, you I know that you have this clinical site on Thursday and Friday. Are you going to use both days? Can you do a 12 hour day on Thursday so they're free on Friday?

We work those schedules to the max trying to find the best way to make it fit. But it's, it's that important, right? It's that important that we find that way to make it work that they gave me this, this course lead job that they allow us to, you know, have some flexibility. And I appreciate that people see it for the importance that it is and help me to try to find those spaces.

Zach Weber
No, and I love some of the key points that you brought up there. know, number one, first and foremost, is collaboration, right? So in true IPE fashion, right, it takes absolute collaboration between us at the IPE Center, between all of our partnering programs, whether it be the College of Pharmacy, the School of Nursing, and the other partners that we have across the state. You have to collaborate together to figure out how can you possibly get people together at the same time, you know? Part of that collaboration is figuring out, where

We potentially need to give a little bit on our end. And I think you brought up the flexibility piece, which is just so important.

Where do you, where might you have those opportunities within your curriculum to be a little bit flexible with your scheduling? You know, I'll just, I'll share a couple of strategies that we've used that I think that have allowed us to be really successful in managing the difficulty in the logistics and the scheduling. And number one is, for example, as you mentioned, there might be only certain days of the week that other programs are available. And so the priority is to try to get our learners together on those days. One thing that we've done is we've tried to work far in advance as possible to say, Hey, you

To let our other course coordinators know and I'll let them know to say we have an IP opportunity for our students on this particular day. I know we have a required lecture that our students might need to attend on that day, but would it be possible with enough notice to maybe move that content online? You know, and that lecture on just that one day online such that that opens up a time block that our students would be able to join at a time when other programs are available to join as well.

Or perhaps could you just look at the requirements of lecture attendance on that particular day? Could you make it optional? Could you make sure there's no points tied to attendance? No in -class quizzes? Are there activities? And so that's a strategy that I've been very successful with and my colleagues at the College of Pharmacy have been very supportive of. And so that one has worked really well. Another one that we've done is we've looked at obviously how to involve our faculty and our facilitators because we couldn't do any of this without them and without their help. And it really does take a village to be able to pull off these experiences because we need a large number of facilitators to be able to facilitate these opportunities. One way that we've helped with that is we have allowed IP facilitation and teaching to count towards required teaching requirements that our faculty have within the college.

When they're able to do that, then the faculty can use those opportunities to put on their various reports, whether it be annual reports, merit reports, promotion dossier, they count towards those required teaching elements in the same way that they're teaching within our, just the pharmacy program counts. And so that's been a big one as well. Working in advance and being very open with your faculty and with your colleagues about really what does it take to pull these off logistically. And so another thing that I've done is I, will regularly attend and present at different department and college meetings. Just so our faculty are kind of continually updated on and reminded of, yes, this is what our students are doing. I report some metrics and some outcomes of what our students are achieving, but then also just a bit of a reminder of what does it take to pull this off? I know another thing, just to share one more example kind of in this space is our college has, I'll just call it, it's a grid. It's a big Excel sheet where each semester the course coordinators will put in their their exams, their quizzes, and their assignments associated with that particular course. And so anybody who coordinates a class in that semester, they all have access to that document.

So we can see, what are our students doing in all of these other courses? And where can we try to work around the schedules such that we're not trying to say, our students have an exam in the morning and an IP opportunity in the afternoon when that might be a really difficult transition for our students to make within that day. But is there the opportunity to offset those experiences a little bit such that our students have time to be able to allocate good time and attention to both of them without feeling like they're just being so overloaded. Every program is gonna have their own unique needs, I think, logistically for what it takes. I think, like you said, I really love the fact that collaboration and flexibility were the key things that you found in your program, because I'll tell you it's the exact same thing on my end of what it takes to pull these things off. And I think if you do that right, then as we've been able to describe here, you can be really successful in how to integrate these opportunities for our students.

But another thing you mentioned was kind of how our students come together, right? Whether there's the opportunity for them to perhaps engage virtually and online, which of course is something that we've seen kind of growing in numbers since we've come out of the pandemic. It's a way of interacting that people are getting much more used to. And so that could be an opportunity to look into the online space. But of course, it might not be the opportunity to actually get people in the same room at the same time. And so I was wondering, maybe Tanya, from your perspective, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages that you've seen for your students when they've been able to engage in the online space or in person?

Tanya Coltrain
So something that I really enjoy about having the opportunity for the online space is that it gives us a chance to meet people from different areas, right? So it may be that if we were doing it in person that would only be with the School of Medicine. The fact that we have students that are coming down from Purdue, that are, you know, that are coming from different spaces with different opportunities. We're talking about logistics, making sure that all the students can get to Indianapolis from West Lafayette is another logistics battle, I'm sure. We have, our core campuses are in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Bloomington.

So when I talk about our 480 nursing students, that's just Indianapolis and so when we are looking at how do we make sure that we can invite everyone to participate, there are times that that online is the only option as a facilitator, as someone who sits with the students in both in -person and online events. I can see the benefits of both. Right. I recognize that there may be some comfortability for the students to be in their own space and to have whatever they need at hand to be able to answer the questions to, you know, to not have to worry about, do I need to bring my electronic devices with me to be able to have the research that I did to be participate in this event? And everything is right there. I think there's great advantages to that along with that we get other learners, but I will tell you as a facilitator, nothing beats in person, right?

There are times that when we're talking, we don't want to interrupt the other person. You're on mute, right? You don't want to come off of mute. And then someone else starts talking and they say what you were going to say. So I do feel like there are more times that we can just have that conversation that would happen in person when it's actually getting brimson, right? It happens easily. It flows a little bit better. There's less awkward pauses and there's less of an opportunity in person for someone to hide in the background or to blame technology for their camera not working or their microphone not being exactly right.

So as much as I appreciate the ability for us to do things online, I truly treasure and I'm not overstating this at all. It is an absolute joy to see those students come together to watch them kind of create these little spaces where they're getting together and actually doing what they're going to do in their career. I value those moments as a facilitator, as a teacher, as a person to watch people just find that connection.

Zach Weber
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think you hit the nail on the head with just some of the advantages and disadvantages to both. And I'll tell you, when we have the opportunity to get our students in person, honestly, one of my absolute favorite things to see is just the casual conversation.

and the pure inquisitiveness that they have when they have the chance to literally sit across the table from a student in another profession that they'll be working with in the not too distant future, right? And so it's, what classes do you take and what do you cover in those classes and how long have you been in school and how quickly do you go through your program? And I know as a facilitator, I hate to interrupt those conversations because they're so rare for our students to have those conversations. But I think, again, those are opportunities that oftentimes just are facilitated by the in -person experience.

But as you mentioned logistically, is oftentimes just easier to log into a Zoom meeting than it is to try to get students into one place. And so, you you mentioned about my students, the pharmacy students being able to come down to Indianapolis from West Lafayette. If you're unfamiliar with the location of those two campuses, they're about an hour to an hour and a half apart. On certain occasions, you know, I've actually been able to adjust our students' schedule and to actually rent buses to be able to bring our students from the Purdue West Lafayette campus down to the Indianapolis campus location.

Because down here we have, you know, case in point from the School of Nursing and from some of our other partners in Indianapolis, we have larger number of learners. And so when we think about bringing our students together and just balancing the number of students that we have from the different professional programs, different campus locations might not have that opportunity, you know. So again, up at the Purdue West Lafayette campus, we have 150 students per class. We are among the biggest health profession programs that we have up there.

And so if it's all of our pharmacy students participating with other local campus partners, it's going to be inundated with pharmacy students, which is not representative of a real life team that they might be working in when they get in practice. It's just so important for us to be able to give those opportunities that again, from a flexibility standpoint, we even look at those opportunities on select occasions over the course of the semester. Can we actually take our students off campus to engage with students on another campus location? Again, I think it definitely takes advantage, but then the flip side of that

there's professions that are across the state that are that our students have the chance to engage with, you know, because through the IUIP center, we offer opportunities on soon to be 10 campus locations across Indiana. And so when we have these online experiences, that gives all of our students, not just my pharmacy students, but your nursing students as well, the chance to connect to students from literally the entire state of Indiana, and perhaps even beyond. have other online partners that are even located outside the state of Indiana, and that represents other universities.

other institutions, potentially other professions that our students can engage with. So again, there's that advantage of being able to connect across a geographic distance when you're online. But again, I completely agree that when you have the chances to be in person, that really is a rare opportunity for our students. When you think about integrating into your curricula, I would encourage you to just to think broadly and to not focus on only one or the other. But are there opportunities for your students to engage in both the online and the in -person setting?

And what might it take to be able to kind of pull both of those things off as well?

Tanya Coltrain
To think about like what other partners, you know, so if you are with a group of learners consistently and it's always medicine or it's always pharmacy, but you could have a chance. I love when we have athletic trainers in our IP settings because their brains are not my brain.

Right? So I'm asking them questions. They are trained in a different way than what I was trained. So I, you know, if we're talking about a specific patient, I'm like, what are you concerned about? Like, I want to know where your brain goes in those moments. That's different than where, where mine does. And how would you strategically plan? That would be different than my strategic plan. So there are opportunities. If there's an opportunity.

say your campus can only ever get with two different schools. What an amazing opportunity to work with a social worker or like I said, athletic training or dental hygiene. And man, do they bring some really interesting things to the table. We all brush our teeth. We know the importance of dental hygiene related to overall health. But some of the things that they put together that I forget about, I learn.

just as much as they're learning in those moments. And I truly think that if you can find those other spaces for your students, it's a gift. It's a gift for them to find those people that they may not work with otherwise.

Zach Weber
Yeah. And maybe just legitimately wouldn't have the chance because those partners are just not immediately available at their kind of geographic campus location. So yeah, I think it's so true. Again, this just speaks to that element of flexibility. It's not just flexibility with timing, it's flexibility with how our students engage with different partners. And again, is there the opportunity that do you have to go into the online space to be able to increase that proximity to other partners? Or is there that opportunity to bring people together in person as well?

You know, and I know when we when we think about integrating into our curriculum, one of the things that is kind of an often misconception of IPE is that it's many times viewed as outside of or in addition to or kind of supplemental to other experiences that are in our curriculum. And I think it's so important that when you can make sure to integrate and embed these types of experiences we've been able to describe in this conversation and what are some strategies to think about such that our students can recognize the importance of these interprofessional experiences that are just as important as the other topics and concepts that they get within their own kind of uniprofessional training. And I know one thing that I've tried very hard to do is to kind of integrate topics or content or activities across both uniprofessional pharmacy classes as well as interprofessional opportunities. So I wonder, Tanya, if you could maybe speak a little bit about within the nursing curriculum, what are ways that you kind of help facilitate the students to kind of see that connection, if you will, between what they might be learning in their nursing specific curricula with what they're learning and participating in in their interprofessional opportunities as well?

Tanya Coltrain
Yeah, absolutely. So usually during the first semester that the students are in our nursing program, they are learning a lot about interprofessional collaboration. But at that point in time, it's all kind of abstract. They're not in the clinical setting yet. They don't really understand why it's important or have never seen it in action. So what I tend to do at that point is just talk about what did you learn about the different professions and what their focus is.

And so during their first event, during their first IPE moment that they have a IPE center, I asked them to write a reflection, write a reflection about the people that they met, what it seemed like their focus was and how they feel like they could fit into this team. Because right now it's about finding your space, right? So after that, I think what I like to tie things from a nursing perspective because when we get into these settings where we're talking about a disease process or the things that keep people unhealthy or keep them healthy, a lot of times we go to that medical space immediately.

We're being taught diagnosis, we're being taught about medicines and it's very easy to focus on those things. If we hear the word diabetes, we know these are the medicines that we're worried about. These are the, you know, the body systems that we're worried about.

But I want to bring it back to when they learned about the social determinants. I want to bring it back to those basics of who is this person that you're working with and what is their focus or what's their priority. And we don't have to do it all, right? We may know it all. We may know the medicines. We may know the body systems. We may know all of these things. But who else on our team can help with

If we have a pharmacist, I don't need to know the specific amount of medication that patient is going to take, right? I can say, think that this would be a good idea and I'll call my friend Zach. And then that will be a focus for him. What if I could focus on what is keeping them from being able to get that medicine or, you know, having them in an environment where they can't make the food or store the food that will keep them from having those high blood sugars.

Those kinds of things, if we can use our partners and share the responsibility, because I think nurses being at the bedside, we try to fix it all. We don't have to fix it all. If we remember everyone's strengths, then I know who to go to. I'm not wasting time. And also, I can focus right there on the patient and what's important.

Zach Weber
Yeah. I think it's so true. And you talked about some of those those different topics or other elements of the curriculum that you can talk about. Again, maybe it's within a nursing class, but you're talking about it from an interprofessional perspective, right? About where are the other professions that could come into play? What are their roles? What are their responsibilities? And I think you can also look, you mentioned something like social determinants of health. Obviously, that's an extremely important topic in consideration for anybody that's an allied health -related field is to think about what are the social determinants of health considerations?

So you can get some of those themes or concepts that can spread across different classes. And I know that's one thing that we've done in our IP curriculum at Purdue is I've tried to pick out some of those different elements to say, yes, you have activities related to SDOH in this pharmacy class. So let's start an activity in that class. And then we're going to build upon that activity in one of your IP courses. And so it's that same concept, that same topic, but the students are engaging with it across multiple classes and in different ways.

Because again, I want them to be able to see that connection and so they see that what they're learning in the space doesn't just apply to the space, but it's directly applicable and relatable to what they're learning in their kind of unit professional space as well. And I think the examples that you just shared kind of speak to that, you know, and so it's allowing the students to see that connection of what they're doing in is just as important as what they're doing in their unit professional space. And here's opportunities that you can have for your students.

to be able to form that connection. And they may not have the ability to make some of those connections themselves without a little bit of guidance, a little bit of help from US faculty. So again, I would encourage you to look for those opportunities. Obviously, we've talked about so much of what IPE looks like within our curriculum. We've talked about so many of the things of what it takes to make it happen in our curriculum and how we can help our students see the importance of it. But then at the end of the day, we have to have some metrics to show that what we're doing is actually working.

The last piece that I just wanted to bring up is to make sure that you think about the assessment instruments that you're using, the assessment practices that you're putting into place, the metrics that you're pulling from these experiences. And so I wonder if you could just speak, Tanya, a little bit about what does IP assessment kind of look like or how have you planned the assessment opportunities that you have related to IP within your curriculum?

Tanya Coltrain
So one of the the metrics that is great for us, the IP center at IU is able to provide with survey data that they are pulling immediately post experience with these other students. So that is giving us some very valuable information on how we can A, figure out if it's something that's working for them. B, is it the right time? Are they understanding what they really should be getting out of those experiences? And if not, are we needing to move that into a different part of the program where maybe they've had a little bit more experience at the bedside and are able to relate?

A bit quality data that we get from those after in person experiences I think are really important. The other things that we're looking at are how do these students talk about interprofessional collaboration when they are in their clinical settings. So a lot of our we call them care plans but it's kind of the paperwork side of the clinical day for our nursing students often they're asked to talk about what interprofessional encounters did you have and who did you need to be able to complete your plan of care? Who did you need to contact? And were you able to get those things done? So we're making sure that they can use the information that they have learned about who is who and what their role is. And can they show us how it's used in those settings?

And then I think the last thing that we're really looking at our NCLEX, which is the, you know, the big task that nurses need to be able to get their license through the state. I don't know percentages, but a massive amount of the work or the concern there is what they call management of care. So you need to know medications, you need to know diagnoses, right? But you also need to know, this is happening with my patient. What do you do?

Is it, can do this or I need to reach out to the physician to be able to get this order or I need to consult with someone else. This is something I can't do on my own. And so having the NCLEX scores that show us specific data about management of care helps us to know that those IPE experiences are really important as well.

Zach Weber
Absolutely. And I love the fact that you brought up, you know, different elements of assessment, right? And there's obviously, you know, kind of the knowledge and the attitudes that is oftentimes the easiest to assess, if you will, because you can get that feedback via survey from our students. And at the same time, you know, I would encourage you to think not just not you specifically, but to encourage the general you right to think beyond just the kind of the knowledge and the attitudes of our students and where are those opportunities to really provide some type of evaluation or assessment related to their skills and their abilities as well. And so you have to think logistically what does it take to be able to pull up the assessment practices and to be able to get the metrics that are important to you? And at the same time, make sure you're not losing track of kind of why you might have started with this to begin with, right?

And so of course we have to keep track of any accreditation or programmatic requirements and you want to make sure that the metrics you're pulling are going to be able to support the data that you might need for your program as well. But then also think about where is there the opportunity to provide individual level student assessment versus maybe you could provide some group assessment as well. And what are the structures that it would take to think about, okay, do I have the ability to evaluate each individual student? Or if they're collaborating in teams, then is this a better structure to be able to evaluate their team performance? And then obviously what are some validated instruments or methods that you can use to be able to capture that? Just like we do with all other educational practices and the different types of assessments and outcomes that we do, again, applying that to the interprofessional education space, I think is just as consistent. You use those same practice habits and those same habits to approach the assessment piece of IPE, then you're able to get the important information that you need to determine how successful are you and your students being in this space, and then obviously use that to help guide future decisions as well.

So, wow, this has just been honestly a wonderful conversation, such a fun conversation to have. I think it's been really fun to just kind of take a step back and explore with you really what it's taken to make IPE so successful in both of our programs. And I know that it has been so successful and will continue to be extremely successful and hopefully more so as we continue to collaborate down the road.

So again, Tanya, I just want to thank you for your time and your insight and your passion and most importantly, your collaboration. Obviously, we have certainly loved having you and your program and your students as a key partner for us at the IPE Center. And then obviously, again, for myself as at the College of Pharmacy, I've loved the opportunity for our students to be able to work with your students as well. So just thank you for taking the time and the experience to join us today.

Tanya Coltrain
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Zach. Thanks to the IPE Center for having me. And I want to say thank you to the IPE Center from my students, because I know that it is, you know, it gives us this opportunity to really show how important nursing is and all of the different aspects that we bring to the table. And I love to watch everyone collaborate and see them shine. So also thank you for letting me be a facilitator, right? Thank you for letting me have that moment.

to see those sparks of energy from those students because it really is electric.

Zach Weber
Yeah, and I don't think I could end it any better than that. So with that, I'll just say thank you again. And we look forward to continuing to collaborate in the future.

Dave Plough
And that is all from Zach and Tanya. We thank you both for taking a part of this podcast series. Again, this is a super interesting way to handle a podcast where we're just bringing in as many people as we can that work in these different areas that are interlocked in one way or another. It's I think it's pretty neat. I don't know. I'm going to cut that part, but go ahead.

Barbara Maxwell
I was just going to say then they don't have to listen to us all the time. They get to hear some other voices and some really experienced voices and the particular area that the podcast focuses on, which is great.

David Plough
Yeah, it is great. And if you want to hear more or see more from the Interprofessional Practice and Education Center or more about Interprofessional Practice Education as a whole,

We do as much as we can to help share the information that we can. We do it at our website, ipe .idu .edu. We do it on our social medias. We're available on what used to be Twitter. We're available on Facebook, but mostly we're really active on our LinkedIn. And you can find us there by searching up the Indiana University Interprofessional Practice and Education Center. Yeah.

Barbara Maxwell
And we're really keen to hear from you. If you have ideas for podcast information, topics that you'd like us to kind of share with you we can bring those experts together and have those conversations for you. So please just let us know your ideas you might have for future podcasts by emailing us at ipectr at iu .edu.

David Plough
And that will do it for this episode. So thank you for listening and we will catch you next time on Collaborative Conversations.

Barbara Maxwell
Bye.