Pharmacy students made a strong showing in the third-annual UMKC Interprofessional Education (IPE) Health Care Reasoning competition as members of the top two teams in the March 2 event held on the health sciences campus.
Pharmacy student Anthony Spallito was a member of the winning team. Ashley Ragan and Andrew Yates were part of the competition’s second-place team.
Four teams of students from across the UMKC health sciences schools took part in the competition. Spallito teamed up with nursing student Becca Stockhausen and medical students Louis Sand and Dylan Schwindt to take the first-place award. The second-place team was made up of Ragan, Yates and medical students Diana Jung and Sahaja Atluri.
This year’s event had teams manage a patient case in which they had to decide what tests to order, then use the test results to answer clinical questions. The teams were judged on interprofessional teamwork, communication, case progression/problem-solving, diagnosis and treatment.
“It was a close competition and every team did very well,” said Stefanie Ellison, M.D., School of Medicine IPE coordinator. “I was impressed with their ability to manage the patient case interprofessionally.”
Deans from the UMKC health sciences schools, Russ Melchert, School of Pharmacy, and Mary Anne Jackson, M.D., School of Medicine, served as judges in the final round. Faculty members from the health sciences schools also served as judges throughout the competition.
The event is planned each year by a group of UMKC pharmacy and medical students. School of Pharmacy students Michael Scott and Joseph Bredeck, and School of Medicine students Jordann Dhuse and Paige Charboneau planned this year’s event and the patient cases.
Organizers work to modify the competition each year to improve the overall experience for students. The group modified this year’s cases and developed Google Classroom as an electronic medical record for students to receive test results and images.
At least two different schools were represented on each team in the two-round, case-based competition. Eight medical students, seven pharmacy students, one nursing and one dental student took part in the competition.
One team from Washington University in St. Louis withdrew at the last minute because of weather concerns. Ellison said event organizers hope to expand the competition into a local and even a regional event in the future with local teams from outside of UMKC as well as beyond Kansas City.