ROOTSTOWN, Ohio -- Providing medical care is never a singular effort. In primary care, doctors must be in constant contact with specialists and pharmacists. For those who work in hospitals, collaboration with nurses, administrators, pharmacists and other doctors is routine.

When Northeast Ohio Medical University established its College of Pharmacy in 2005 – its first expansion beyond being simply a college of medicine – part of its mission was to increase collaboration between primary care physicians and those who dispense medications.

“We decided that we were going to create an interprofessional education system here whereby pharmacy students and medical students learn together in the lecture hall, the classroom, the seminar room and the simulation laboratories in the clinical environment with patients,” explains Dr. Jay Gershen, president of NEOMED.

“In learning together, they also adopt skills that would allow them to interact better and in a more effective way when they become practitioners out in the community,” he says.

About 40% of the courses offered at NEOMED are taken by both medical and pharmacy students. “If you look at how the pharmacy school and medical school relate, we have about 40% overlap in curriculum,” says Dr. Jeffrey Sussman, dean of the College of Medicine.

“To me, it’s like liberal arts [college],” observes Dr. Thomas Boniface, a NEOMED graduate, chairman and clinical professor of orthopedic surgery and orthopedic surgeon in Youngstown. “There are some benefits to being in a liberal arts environment. Just studying in the same room with people with different majors [can lead to] talking, problem solving, and critically thinking about how to solve problems.”

Carly McAtee, a pharmacist at Infusion Partners in Canfield and a member of the College of Pharmacy’s first graduating class, says working with students going into different areas of medicine allowed her to make a fairly seamless transition into her job after graduating.

“I got a lot of experience communicating with a wider array of people. I feel comfortable speaking with physicians, nurses and other health-care providers,” she says. “When you’re able to work together as a team, it makes you perform better in a professional relationship.”

Before the pharmacy college was established NEOMED -- then the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine --  existed only as a medical school shared among the University of Akron, Youngstown State University and Kent State University. During the first 28 years of the college, students had no opportunity to work in other disciplines. But that didn’t mean the students were closed off from other forms of medicine.

“I would commonly talk with the pharmacist to make sure that the right dosage goes with the right medication, especially if they were complicated cases,” says Dr. Michael Miladore, a graduate of the medical college’s second class and today a professor of orthopedic surgery at NEOMED and a surgeon with University Orthopedics in Youngstown. “Now that they have the medical and pharmacy students working together at the university, camaraderie is being built into their psyches so much earlier.”

While Miladore says that, in hindsight, he wishes he had more of an interdisciplinary education at the former NEOUCOM, working among the disciplines is something that all doctors learn, regardless of whether it’s on the job or while they’re still in school.

Putting students into those interdisciplinary environments can provide them a head start in learning how to work with others, but students can’t be forced to learn.

“These are very bright students. I assure you they don’t take mandates very well,” says Dr. Elisabeth Young, a NEOMED alumna and vice dean of its College of Medicine. “We have a responsibility to show them intellectually [why it matters].”

When doctors can have open lines of communication with colleagues and be open to various points of view, more pathways to solving medical problems can be seen that might have been overlooked had only a single doctor looked at the issue, Young says.

Miladore adds, “In any problem, you’ve got your own opinion on how to solve it. But if you put in one or two or three other options and actually listen, together you’ll come up with an even better solution and the patient is better for that,” he says.

In the classroom, professors expose students to new ways of thinking about medicine.

For instance, Boniface helped bring physical therapy professors from YSU to NEOMED to help teach anatomy and how to figure out some problems doctors encounter when they conduct physical exams.

“[We teach them] how to palpate a body from the outside, not how to cut it open and look at the parts inside. [That’s] how you look at parts from the physical therapist’s point of view,” Boniface explains. “Usually for anatomy, medical students are told, ‘Here’s your cadaver. Cut it up and memorize the structures.’ It’s very cut and dried.”

Young, who is married to Boniface, says inter-disciplinary education takes many forms.

“There are definite opportunities in the classroom. It can be small-group learning, getting a case and problem solving, or learning the skills and disciplines collaboratively,” she remarks.

“We understand that interprofessional education also is being out in the field,” she continues. “The true way to interprofessional education is what’s happening in the lab of the world, that is, in a community or in a hospital where you need each other.”

The newest innovation in for interdisciplinary education at NEOMED can be found in the lobby of the newest building on campus: the Health, Wellness and Medical Education Complex. Here, a fully functional pharmacy is being built where students can work distributing medications and talk with physicians about their choice of prescriptions.

“We’re going to have pharmacists sitting right up front, including our students who are going to be learning in that environment where they interact with patients doing medication management. This is where it comes together,” says NEOMED President Gershen. “They’re going to sit there and look at medications and interact with the physicians who have prescribed those medications.”

Even without the rare aspect of a pharmacy on campus, the interdisciplinary model is something that has benefited students in the nine years since the university expanded. Students can learn how to deal with other specialties while still in school, rather than after they’ve graduated and find themselves in situation where they risk dangerous miscommunications.

“It’s important that you not only work with people that directly do the same job, but work with people who are all different types,” says McAtee, the pharmacist. “When you can only relate to someone in your exact same profession, you’re not going to get as far and be as successful.”

Pictured: Drs. Elisabeth Young and Thomas Boniface, both alumni of NEOMED, say working with doctors in other areas of medicine gave them a better understanding of the medical field.

Editor's Note: The October edition of The Business Journal features extensive coverage of NEOMED and its growth over 40 years. Be sure to watch Friday's "3 Minutes With" to hear Dr. Walter Horton, vice president of research, explain some of the exciting scientific studies underway at the university.

Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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