Curricular Highlights

Fall 2025

Healthcare Literacy and Interprofessional Telehealth Consideration

The primary objective of this Interprofessional learning activity continues to be to provide students with an opportunity to analyze the impact of culture, language, social determinants of health, and health literacy, along with Interprofessional telehealth considerations, as they pertain to continuity of care and the patient's ability to make and implement health related decisions across multiple levels of patient-centered care. This IPE project includes students from various disciplines at LMU including Osteopathic Medicine, Physician Assistant, Family Nurse Practitioner, Physical Therapy, Veterinary Medicine, and Pharmacy students from South College.  It is utilized within each of the disciplines differently, as either a course, certificate program, or co-curricular requirement credit depending on the curricular needs of each discipline. 

Objectives for this virtual event were as follows:

• Identify key components of a transition of care plan to facilitate continuity of care of a patient to ensure quality care.
• Differentiate benefits and limitations of telehealth strategies to provide patient-centered care and ensure appropriate referrals as needed.
• Identify the role social determinants of health, culture, language, and health literacy has on a patient's ability to make and implement health-related decisions.
• Discuss performance as a cohesive collaborative team in addressing unique patient health needs.

This virtual activity provides approximately 796 students the opportunity to experience multiple asynchronous recorded simulations.  The students witness actual professionals as they model simulated virtual interdisciplinary team (IDT) meetings in a hospital setting, skilled nursing facility, and home health setting.  Two separate culminating live virtual sessions were conducted on November 7 and 14, 2026, from 3:00–4:30 p.m. to include polling, small group breakout rooms, and large group discussion opportunities planned to facilitate interprofessional collaborative learning. 

Spring 2026

Opioid Education Symposium 2026:

MOVING AWAY FROM OPIOID RELIANCE; INTERPROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVES FOR COMPASSIONATE CARE

Lincoln Memorial University-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine (LMU-DCOM) hosted the 2026 Virtual Opioid Education Symposium (OES2026) on Monday, April 20, from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The theme of this year’s symposium was MOVING AWAY FROM OPIOID RELIANCE; Interprofessional Perspectives; Strategies for Detecting Opioid Misuse and the Communication that Follows. This symposium series continues to increase recognition, from both clinical and holistic perspectives, of the devastating factors contributing to opioid misuse, regionally and nationally. A total of 715 students representing Osteopathic Medicine, Physician Assistant, Family Nurse Practitioner, Pharmacy, Registered Nursing, and Social Work programs participated in the event. Overall attendance was estimated to range between 3,000 and 5,000 participants.

Objectives for this virtual event were as follows:

• Explore historical use of opioids, evidence-based adjuncts and alternatives to opioid therapy.
• Define and recognize the role of a personalized compassionate care approach to substance use disorders.
• Identify risk factors, warning signs, and screening indicators of opioid misuse, and apply patient-centered, compassionate communication strategies that support early intervention and appropriate referral.
• Describe the role of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment as an adjunctive measure in the care of patients struggling with substance use disorder.

Monday April 20, from 12:30-4:30

12:30 – 12:35 p.m.   Introduction:  Dr. Brandy Fuesting

12:35 – 1:05 p.m.    Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, Where We’re Headed:  Dr. David Crabtree

1:05 – 1:55 p.m.       Keynote: Pain, Compassion, and Consequence: Lessons from the Table, the Bedside, and the Morgue: Dr. Tyler McCurry

1:55 – 2:05 p.m.        Break (10 Minutes)

2:05 – 2:55 p.m.        Keynote: Teaching Providers about Opioid Misuse Detection Dr. Karen Derefinko 

2:55 – 3:25 p.m.          Moderated Panel: Interprofessional Case Review

3:25 – 3:35 pm            Break (10 Minutes)

3:35 – 4:15 pm            Experiential Speaker: Nathan Payne  

4:15 – 4:30 pm            Wrap up and survey 

Please click the link below to access the event recording:     

Opioid Education Symposium (OES2026)      

Summer 2026

Developing Awareness of Financial Insecurities as a Social Determinant of Health

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. This activity is designed to introduce students to financial insecurities as a SDOH and demonstrate how financial insecurities may contribute to poor health outcomes. Using the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies as a framework, students will be able to meet the following outcomes:

VE1. Place interests of patients and populations at the center of interprofessional health care delivery and population health programs and policies, with the goal of promoting health and health equity across the life span.
VE3. Embrace the cultural diversity and individual differences that characterize patients, populations, and the health team.
TT3. Engage health and other professionals in shared patient-centered and population-focused problem solving.

Activity 
Two-hour Zoom Session on June 18, 2026, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. During this interprofessional learning activity, students collaborated in interprofessional teams to work through realistic, case-based scenarios using an online game-based platform. Teams navigated fictional situations that required collective decision-making, with each group's choices influencing how their unique scenario progressed.

• Students were briefed on the activity process during the Zoom session introduction.
• Participants were assigned to small interprofessional breakout teams.
• Teams were expected to share their professional knowledge and experiences to address questions presented within each scenario and complete the activity within 45 minutes.
• Students were encouraged to actively listen to and respect the diverse perspectives of their fellow participants.
• Each team was supported by a trained moderator who facilitated discussion and guided the interactive activity.

Following the breakout sessions, students reconvened as a larger group for a facilitated debrief and discussion.