Who We Are
Recognized as a national IPE leader, UNE is the only institution in New England that is part of the National Center for Interprofessional Education and Practice’s prestigious Innovation Network.
Our mission is to prepare students to work collaboratively, across disciplines, to achieve more successful outcomes as members of clinical and community teams.
Our work touches every health professions program at UNE and many of the arts, sciences, research, and humanities programs. We foster an inclusive environment where students, faculty, and community partners learn together to advance effective health practices and improve the quality of life for all people.
What is Interprofessional Education?
Interprofessional education takes place when students from two or more disciplines learn with, from, and about each other to better understand different professions’ roles and expertise, improve communication, enhance teamwork, and advance future workforce skills.
IPE began with health professions, with students from different programs being taught to work together as part of larger, interdisciplinary healthcare teams. This approach has proven to produce successful patient outcomes, and the model is now expanding so it can be applied to broader situations.
Collaborative practice is the professional application of IPE, with people from different backgrounds and with different areas of expertise working together to deliver a higher quality of service and care to achieve common goals.
Teamwork allows you to achieve more together than any one person could achieve alone.
Morgan Dube '22
Experiential Education
What really drew me in about UNE is all of the opportunities for interprofessional learning. We are able to meet new people in all of the health professions and ultimately learn a lot more than just PA. Once I graduate, I know that I will be able to apply those experiences to my work because teamwork is so important in a health professions setting. In order to give patients the best care, you are always going to need to include other people in the work. The interprofessional opportunities at UNE are definitely my favorite part of the PA program. There are constantly more of these types of opportunities available, and it’s great.
We are working on things with 49 other students, so we have a great sense of teamwork, and everyone offers something unique. We will be working on teams in the future, so this type of practice now is great.
All of the students in my class have different backgrounds, which is really cool to experience. In each module that we have, we are learning different things, and there are certain people that are able to contribute their insights from past experiences in such useful ways. It enhances our learning experience and makes it so much more interesting and valuable.
Exceptional Teaching and Learning
We're in our cardio module right now, and learning how to read EKG is hard, but it’s really interesting and fun too. [Our professor] is super helpful. We were able to put EKGs on each other and get our own readings then interpret them, which I thought was really cool. One of the students in our lab was able to do a mock stress test with the EKG leads on while they were running on the treadmill too. It was a lot of fun to experience and learn.
I honestly can't say anything bad about UNE. UNE does a great job to adapt a lot and put our education first. I really feel like I am getting the best education here. I’m learning so much so fast. It’s really rewarding. I can’t wait for clinicals in second year! We do at least six different rotations and then have two where we can choose what we want to do for the specialty. You can find your own preceptor that is willing to take you on, so it’s flexible. I think that will help me decide exactly what I want to do after I graduate.
The interprofessional opportunities at UNE are definitely my favorite part of the PA program.
IPE Impact Report
In addition to making people more effective health care providers, IPE helps people get hired, maximize leadership opportunities, avert professional burnout, develop resilience, and more.
These are among the findings from a recent survey of alumni, asking them to gauge the impact their interprofessional education is having on their working lives.
Why Interprofessional Education Matters
Student Opportunities
CAIEP engages UNE undergraduate and graduate students in a wide range of cross-disciplinary experiential activities, immersive service-learning opportunities, team-based community initiatives, and collaborative research projects.
Students can earn an IPE Honors Distinction by documenting participation in CAIEP activities in an e-portfolio and producing a meaningful interprofessional project.
If you’d like to learn more about CAIEP opportunities, email Michelle Cote at mcote8@sanmingzhi.net.
Faculty and Professional Staff Opportunities
Faculty and professional staff are always welcome and encouraged to become members of CAIEP’s lively community as facilitators, advisors, and researchers to advance knowledge of IPE’s efficacy.
To learn more about employee opportunities email Kris Hall at chall4@sanmingzhi.net.
Our Collaborators
CAIEP builds relationships with faculty, university centers, programs, community partners, and national organizations. These partnerships contribute to state-of-the-art programming, meaningful co-curricular and service-learning opportunities for students while at the university, and lifelong connections post-graduation.
If you would like to partner with our center, email Shelley Cohen Konrad at scohenkonrad@sanmingzhi.net.