Two students from the Department of Allied Health Sciences will represent the UNC School of Medicine at the annual CLARION case competition, an initiative dedicated to improving health care through interprofessional education and hosted by the University of Michigan.
Kripa Ahuja, a junior who has nearly completed her first year of study with the Division of Clinical Laboratory Science and Uzma Khan, a first-year graduate student with the Division of Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling, will join students from the Gillings School of Global Public Health, the UNC School of Dentistry, and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the competition. The UNC-Chapel Hill Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice announced the team selection at the end of January 2019.
Khan, an international student from New Delhi, India, said interdisciplinary work gives health care practitioners a new lens through which they can better understand holistic patient care. “Teamwork is essential in health care,” Khan said. “Collaborative care helps us understand and work toward addressing the different facets of the care a patient needs.”
Ahuja said attending a lecture on the opioid epidemic and serving as a student ambassador in the Department of Allied Health Sciences (DAHS) sparked her interest in IPE-related activities. “I found CLARION to be an opportunity to learn more about interprofessional health care and engage in learning outside the classroom,” Ahuja said. “Only with effective collaboration from all professions, health care can become more synergistic, thus providing better overall treatment for the patient.”
Teams consisting of four students from health professional schools around the country conduct a root cause analysis on a fictitious case regarding a complex health care challenge. Students then travel to Minnesota in April to present their solutions to a panel of judges.
Khan serves as co-president of the DAHS student ambassador program and is an outreach chair with Stigma Free Carolina, a campaign aimed at reducing stigma toward mental health concerns and treatment.