Faculty, staff and students attended Nexus Summit 2024 to learn best practices in interprofessional education and practice while connecting with national peers. Here they share some reflections from this year’s conference.
Nexus Summit is an annual convening hosted by the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education that brings together educators, clinicians and others dedicated to interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice.
This year’s virtual event took place September 24-26, 30 and October 1, 2024 and included a variety of University of Michigan presenters and attendees. Standout presentations from the U-M team included several seminars and a lightning talk.
“Our U-M team had a really significant presence at NEXUS and I truly loved all of our presentations,” shared Rajesh Mangulkar, director of the Center for Interprofessional Education (C-IPE).
“We really pushed those in attendance to think differently about how we can scale our efforts and use our influential levers to drive transformational change in the way we practice and learn in teams.”
Hannah Edwards, C-IPE’s curriculum administrative specialist and Sharmi Amin, a student at the University of Michigan Medical School, presented a lightning talk on adaptive leadership within early IPE contexts. Their presentation included a deep dive into the leadership styles of students as part of the Introduction to IPE module.
“They did a fantastic job presenting, but the richness was in the discussion. We had what I thought was a really important conversation about how we have a responsibility to educate students on the IPEC competencies, but we also very much have to develop students as leaders if we want the future health care system to be different,” remarked Vani Patterson, administrative director of C-IPE.
She continued, “We have obviously taken steps in that direction here at U-M, but it was validating to hear national experts echo the importance of it and to think about how much deeper we need to go in order to be successful.”
Amin, who was both a first-time attendee and presenter at Nexus Summit, found the experience to be very valuable.
“As a medical student interested in bringing more IPE education and engagement early into the health science curriculum, it was an amazing opportunity to share our work at the Nexus Summit. It was a valuable opportunity to have our work heard by a diverse audience of other specialists in the field, and respond to their poignant questions,” Amin shared.
She continued, “I was especially excited to share my experience as a student liaison and describe the impact of our modules from a student perspective. I feel that the Nexus Summit allowed us to make an impact by connecting with leaders from other schools who were interested in building similar models of student engagement at their own institutions.”
Below are more reflections from University of Michigan participants and presenters who attended Nexus Summit 2024.
On why others should choose to attend Nexus Summit:
“For me, the Nexus Summit is one of the few places where we can connect our interprofessional education and practice missions, and meet with others who also strive to measure the impact of this work we do.” – Rajesh Mangrulkar
“It’s a conference that has high quality, high impact, evidence-informed programming. It also intentionally threads a collaborative spirit between the diverse audience of participants and presenters.” – Laura Smith, associate director in the Physical Therapy Department, University of Michigan-Flint
“It is a great opportunity to reconnect with our national peers, get inspired by what others are doing, and calibrate where we are and the direction we are moving towards.” -Vani Patterson
Thoughts on additional presentations:
“Besides our own seminars and presentations, I loved the plenary from the National Academy of Science and Engineering in medicine co-leads of the transforming interprofessional primary care workgroup. The recommendations about how to address the systemic issues that impede truly effective interprofessional primary care was insightful and compelling. The focus on changing the financial models was especially important, in my opinion.” – Rajesh Mangrulkar
“The student presentations were very inspiring. We need to be sure that students (and patients) are part of the IP movement.” – Laura Smith
“We always learn a lot at Nexus. For me, I was especially inspired by centers that enhance the role of students as ‘change agents’ in transforming interprofessional practice models. This is an initiative we are starting to develop (students as interprofessional leaders and change agents) and I think we could really move the needle on the future by investing energy into this idea.” – Rajesh Mangrulkar