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PORTLAND, Maine

UNE staff present jointly at National AHEC Conference

Staff from the School of Community and Population Health's Maine Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Network: Karen O'Rourke, M.P.H., director; Maryfrances Smith, B.S., program manager; and Kira Rodriguez, M.H.S., AHEC evaluator; in addition to Shelley Cohen-Konrad, Ph.D., LCSW, the director of the Center for Excellence in Interprofessional Education, and Sarah Dubay, Center Director of the Eastern Maine AHEC; presented jointly at the National AHEC Conference on July 9, 2014, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The panel discussed "Maine AHEC's Role in Implementing Interprofessional Practice and Education (IPE) Innovations" to an audience of approximately 40 conference attendees. The learning objectives were to: increase understanding of the potential role AHECs play in implementation of IPE efforts (e.g. leveraging resources, training, and evaluation); describe the importance of environmental context, leadership support, and external resources for IPE success; and increase knowledge of potential evaluation methods and tools for assessing outcomes of IPE efforts.

Sarah Dubay also won first prize for Penobscot Community Health Care's poster "Making it Home:  Community Immersion in Clinical Training Makes an Impact,"  which discussed physician assistant students spending their second year of clinical training at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and a community-based hospital.  Lorri Brown, Center Director of the Western Maine AHEC, presented a poster on "Connecting Rural Youth with Healthcare Careers through Work-Linked Learning."

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.