Patient counseling competition wins national award
Two University of Florida College of Pharmacy students and a College of Medicine student have been honored for developing and implementing a competition designed to assess students’ patient counseling skills.
Pharmacy students Tony Martin, author, and Kathryn Momary, co-author, were named third-place winners of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Their project, titled “IDX: An Interdisciplinary Healthcare Experience (Allied Health, Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy),” won them a $3,000 cash award, which was shared with Kevin Cahill, a College of Medicine student who was a co-author but not a participant. Faculty advisers were William Riffee, Ph.D., dean of the College of Pharmacy, and Rose Nealis, Ph.D., A.R.N.P., of the College of Nursing.
Eight student teams were assigned to assess, diagnose, treat and educate “patients”—portrayed by trained actors—suffering from hospital-acquired pneumonia. The 67 students who participated came from the UF colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Health Professions.
“Drafting the case was a challenge because it had to be realistic and applicable to all the professions,” said Momary, a third-year pharmacy student. “In any hospital, these professions have to work together. They have to get to the same goal: correctly diagnose the patient and prescribe the correct treatment plan. This competition encourages the students to work together to get to that goal.”
Initially, the student teams met with their patients in UF’s Harrell Professional Development and Assessment Center, where the interviews were videotaped. In 15 minutes each team had to arrive at a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan.
The second part of the competition involved a 30-minute presentation of the treatment plan before an interdisciplinary faculty panel. The panel scored each presentation on the knowledge the team exhibited in their encounter with the patient, and quizzed the students on their decisions, logic, professional manner, language and teamwork.
“This prize is a wonderful cap, but if we hadn’t gotten it, it wouldn’t have taken anything away from what we’ve done,” said Martin, who began the competition three years ago and recently earned both a Pharm.D. degree and a master’s in business administration. “The experience has changed the way these students view the other health professions.”
The award, now in its 20th year, recognizes forward-thinking student proposals that generate creative strategies for addressing goals outlined in HHS’ national health agenda, “Healthy People 2010: Understanding and Improving Health.” The award is sponsored by HHS in collaboration with the Federation of Associations of Schools of the Health Professions. Proposals were judged on innovation, technical merit, feasibility and potential impact on a community.