Saturday, May 17, 2025
Students from Touro University’s School of Health Sciences gained some real-world health care experience at the 12th annual Interprofessional Education Symposium, at Congregation Sons of Israel in Woodmere, on March 25.
Students from seven health care professions teamed up to work through a mock case in which they treated, and then discharged, a patient who had suffered a stroke.
Touro University, one of the largest health care education providers in the country, has hosted the symposium at the Woodmere synagogue for eight of the past 12 years.
“I think as far as Congregation Sons of Israel is concerned, it’s a service to a fellow Jewish institution,” Harriett Gefen, the synagogue’s executive/educational director, said. “Touro University also has quite a number of people enrolled in its program who come from this area or from Brooklyn, so we’re really a very good, centrally located area for them.”
The participants included 380 graduating seniors as well as faculty from Touro’s nursing, occupational therapy, physician assistant, physical therapy, speech-language pathology, clinical mental health counseling, and pharmacy programs. They were divided into teams, each comprising of one student from every program, with Touro professionals guiding the teams. The teams were given the mock case, to analyze the patient and to develop a treatment and discharge plan.
Jill Horbacewicz, chair of the physical therapy department at Touro and special assistant vice president for continuing education, said that the event gives students the chance to work together as they would in real-world settings.
“We have the students learn all about this patient from their own profession’s perspective in their classroom,” said Horbacewicz, a graduate of Lawrence High School. “When they come here, they’re really well prepared to talk about it from their profession’s perspective, and then they realize that there’s lots of other professions that need to get involved, and there’s different things that become important that they have to consider that maybe they didn’t think about.”
Miriam Babad, a Far Rockaway resident who suffered a stroke in 1995, shared her story with the students, and answered questions about what was happening when her stroke occurred, the professionals she dealt with, and how her case was handled.
Her daughter, Rivka Molinsky, the associate dean of students and innovation at the School of Health Sciences, who helped organize the event, helped her mother answer questions about her stroke. They detailed, among other things, how the professionals they worked with decided whether Babad should return home with family support or remain in the hospital for therapy and treatment.
The students used this information to guide their decision-making as they worked through their case. The focus was on giving them real-world experience and the opportunity to collaborate with those in other professions before they enter the workforce.
Moshe Berke, one of the Touro seniors, noted that the experience of meeting students from the other programs would benefit him and his peers in the future.
“I think it’s cool just to be able to talk to the other disciplines,” Berke said, “because sometimes when you’re in practice, depending on where you are, you might not be able to see other people or other professions. So having the chance now to bounce ideas off of other professions when dealing with the case can give you a better idea of how you can refer in the future and give patients the best care possible.”
Each group discussed its approach to treating and discharging its patient, and fielded comment and questions as well, giving the teams a chance to share their findings and explain their reasoning.
Steven Lorenzet, dean of the School of Health Sciences, touched on the importance of the event for the students, and how the university is preparing them for their careers.
“We’re preparing them to be effective professionals, and to help people,” Lorenzet said. “So when they graduate, this is what they’ll experience. They’ll be in an integrated care team, where they’ll be working with people across professions. They’ll be expected to collaborate, understand their perspective, but also how they can work with people from other disciplines, and this is a great chance for them to learn in this setting and do that.”
