CHCS - Perspectives Summer/Fall 2017

College of Health Care Sciences 31 experiences. Ross remarked how each OT speaker related a personal story to engage the staff members, while Hinds and West fulfilled their passion of advocating for the OT profession with their attendance. Gilmore shared her excitement about taking the initiative to explain occupational therapy’s role with pain manage- ment to a legislative staffer in a room filled with more than 200 people. Laureano valued the opportunity to speak with occupational therapists from different practice areas and students from other programs. Because of these and other benefits to students’ professional engagement, Bloch and Dorne plan to continue OT advocacy with M.O.T. students at AOTA Capitol Hill Day on September 25, 2017. ● Fort Lauderdale M.O.T. faculty members and students are shown at Union Station in Washington, D.C., after their briefing with the AOTA staff in preparation for legislative visits. Front row, from left, are Rachelle Dorne and M.O.T. students Autumn West, Lauren Ross, Rebecca Gilmore, Zoey Kramer, and Devan Cossu- Edwards. Back row, from left, are Elise Bloch and M.O.T students Philip Carstens, Nina Laureano, Caitlin McRory, Kathryn Haston, and Camille Hinds. Taking it to the Streets: An IPE Community Reentry Activity Students from the physical therapy and occupational therapy programs recently took learning to the streets. The activity involved students from each discipline participating near the campus. Faculty members from both programs worked collaboratively to create five cases, which were distributed to students in interdisciplinary teams. The aim of each case was for the students to experience what patients encounter as they are discharged back into the community, often with residual deficits and challenges. Students from both programs were given a pretest and a post survey to complete for the activity. The pretest focused on asking students what they thought their role was vs. the other discipline; what they would assess while in the community; and what they understood the purpose of the outing to be. The post survey focused on how the activity may have helped them learn about other disciplines, as well as more about the purpose of community reentry. Students reported they not only better understood the other discipline, but what community reentry was. One student said, “I saw the benefit of collaboration,” while another stated, “I got to understand all the challenges a patient faces when going back into the community.” ●