As the late afternoon sun pours into the glass lobby of Magruder hall, students from different colleges around the valley gather around Patrick Kamins, Student Services Coordinator, asking for directions to the IPE rooms. Enrolled in Interprofessional Education, they are joining CVM students in small groups to discuss specific public health cases.
In one conference room, Associate Dean Sue Tornquist leads a discussion comparing the incidence rates of cancer in humans with other species. Each member of the team has spent the prior week researching a specific animal and brought their findings to share. One student found that Golden Retrievers have twice the rate of cancer as other breeds. Another student discovered that cats have a much lower rate than dogs. The rate of cancer in equine and herd animals is even smaller. Many of the students were surprised to learn that one in three dogs die of cancer, about the same rate as humans.
Students participating in IPE come from health profession majors at OSU, Western University of Health Sciences and Linn-Benton Community College. The course allows them to study cases from a variety of perspectives and is part of CVM’s commitment to a “One Health” philosophy that recognizes the need for interdisciplinary collaborations and communication in all aspects of health care for humans, animals and the environment.”We look a case scenarios and then work to identify holes in communication between health professionals and [discuss] how the communication can be improved,” says student Michelle Janik.
IPE is one half of a discussion-based class for first year vet students; the other half is Veterinary Integrated Problem Solving (VIPS) in which groups of veterinary students investigate animal cases. “It is a chance for veterinary students to begin connecting the dots between the things we are learning in other classes — like anatomy, physiology, neurology, and pathology — and real world cases,” says Janik. “It also gives us the opportunity to research deeper into the clinical aspects of some of the concepts we learn in our core classes.”
