Transformative Learning
With more than 30 programs across the health care spectrum, Rutgers School of Health Professions strives to provide students with transformative opportunities to engage in multidisciplinary clinical, service, and research experiences beyond their didactic learning.
Over the past year, we focused on widening opportunities for interprofessional learning and team-based care in community settings.
In fall 2021, our school became a community partner in providing needed diagnostic and clinical speech-language services to children and adults in our hometown of Newark. The clinic, located in the Bergen Building, was staffed by students in our master’s in speech-language pathology program, who assessed and treated people with speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders.
Seeing an urgent need, we also opened a five-week summer clinic that brought students from three disciplines together to provide supervised, team-based care to people with brain injuries. Physical therapy, speech-language pathology and occupational therapy students together addressed speech-language cognition, balance, mobility and the challenges of everyday living.
Partnerships have been formed with other schools at Rutgers and across the globe that deepen our students’ understanding of team-based care.
Our global affairs department is collaborating with Rutgers School of Communications and Information (SC&I) on an initiative sponsored through the Institute of International Education in Greece. In May and June, SHP and SC&I offered their first joint summer school program in Greece—which included students from both schools, Rutgers School of Social Work and the Hellenic Mediterranean University in Crete.
“Our interprofessional teams gained insights into the many factors impacting health-related inequalities in Greece. Together, they developed proposals to help mitigate these inequalities,” said Riva Touger-Decker, professor and associate dean of global affairs at SHP.
Meanwhile, we continue to offer innovative education.
A flourishing program in laboratory science recognizes the reality that diagnostics is better when team-based: The Doctorate in Clinical Laboratory Science prepares certified medical laboratory scientists to be clinically trained, advanced health care practitioners who can vault beyond the traditional role of diagnosis into clinical consultation as members of an interprofessional team.
The first program of its kind, it began with one graduate in 2018 and now has 28 students. They are sought-after partners in hospital and clinical settings. Through practice and research, they contribute to improved patient outcomes and effective use of clinical laboratory services.
“Our graduates are meeting the needs of health care providers and answering the call,” said Nadine A. Fydryszewski, program director.