Since matriculating its first class in the Fall of 2008, the Jefferson College of Pharmacy has embraced interprofessional education (IPE) and has been an active member of the Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. Beginning their first semester on campus, JCP students participate in required IPE activities. These activities include students from many other Jefferson programs including couple and family therapy, medical laboratory sciences, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy and physician’s assistant. In addition to the formal IPE activities, students may also participate in numerous co-curricular IPE activities. We also have affiliations with a broad range of clinical practice sites where team-based collaborative care is the standard of practice. JCP students have the opportunity to observe and practice team-base collaborative care at increasing levels of engagement as they proceed through the four-year Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum.
As a result of its efforts in IPE, JCP faculty have been invited to numerous national meetings to share what it has learned and to showcase (PDF) its IPE activities. Many JCP student pharmacists have also had the opportunity to present or publish (PDF) reports of their IPE experiences. Many prospective student pharmacists have identified our IPE as a reason for selecting Jefferson as their Pharmacy College of choice. Over the past four years, incoming students for most disciplines identified the ability to work with interprofessional healthcare teams in the top ten reasons for attending Jefferson.