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Academic Programs
RESILIENCE. PURPOSE. HOPE.
Academic Programs
ETSU elevated its interprofessional education (IPE) curriculum with two new innovative IPE experiences that included students and faculty from ETSU’s five health sciences colleges.
Interprofessional Training
In November 2019, students participated in the pilot Interprofessional and Profession-Specific Skills Simulation, which brought together students and faculty from the health sciences colleges for a code blue simulation in a state-ofthe-art skills simulation lab, located in ETSU’s Interprofessional Education and Research Center (known as Building 60) on the VA campus . Interprofessional education, or learning to work across health care disciplines to ensure better patient outcomes, is a wellestablished priority at ETSU. However, the code blue IPE simulation is a new addition to the program .
The students’ “patient” was a high-fidelity simulation manikin whose vital signs could be manipulated by technicians behind the scenes . The students from the various health professions disciplines worked together as a team to navigate the intricacies of the situation to save the patient’s life, just as they would in a real medical emergency . Afterwards, the participants came together to debrief as an interprofessional team, and then broke into their specific colleges/ disciplines for additional debriefing specific to their profession .
Capstone Event
The culminating experience of the IPE curriculum took place in February 2020 with the inaugural IPE Capstone Event. The students who participated in this event had completed the IPE curriculum and were brought together for one final experience in which they worked in teams to deal with a situation that was presented to them by a simulated patient . The patient situations ranged from a pregnant woman unexpectedly going into labor during a routine exam to a patient who required end-of-life care at home . To create these experiences, organizers utilized all of the simulation spaces in Building 60, including hospital rooms, exam rooms, ERs, step-down units, and home settings . As the teams followed their patients, they focused on transitions of care and the importance of communication between the health care professions . At the end of the experience, they participated in a final debriefing session to unpack the important lessons they learned that day and throughout the two-year longitudinal IPE curriculum at ETSU. “One of the things we are most proud of about our IPE program is that it is an intentional journey that culminated in this capstone event,” said Dr. Brian Cross, Director of ETSU’s Interprofessional Research Center and Associate Professor in Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. “We are trying to create an environment of trust and teamwork. This environment elevates everyone’s training.”
Two Schools Become a College
When Dr . Rick Osborn, longtime Dean of the School of Continuing Studies and Academic Outreach, retired in the summer of 2020, university officials decided on a new direction to maximize academic and fiscal efficiencies and to best align with the university’s mission. Effective July 1, the school merged with the School of Graduate Studies, becoming the new College of Graduate and Continuing Studies, with Dr . Sharon McGee, formerly Dean of Graduate Studies, becoming the leader of the new academic unit . While much of Graduate Studies remains the same, some restructuring of Continuing Studies and Academic Outreach has taken place . All of the academic degree programs within the former college, along with Professional Development and transfer articulation, now fall under Dr. McGee’s leadership in the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies . The new college is now home to two interdisciplinary research units – the Smart Brain Institute and the Child and Family Health Institute . Among the future plans for the new college are working with regional business and industry to expand professional development opportunities to provide needed badges and micro-credentials for current and future employees, the creation of new interdisciplinary programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and more.
ETSU’s off-campus centers in Kingsport, Sevierville, Asheville and Abingdon, however, are now under the oversight of Dr. David Linville, Executive Vice Provost for Academics and Health. “We’re really just taking the foundation of what Dr. Osborn had built in the School of Continuing Studies and Academic Outreach,” Dr. McGee says, “and moving forward to pursue opportunities we may now have as a college.”
The College of Public Health celebrated the 50th anniversary of its B.S. in Environmental Health. In 1969, ETSU’s program pioneered the way for environmental health education, becoming the first undergraduate program in environmental health to receive full accreditation by the National Environmental Health Science & Protection Accreditation Council . ETSU was the only institution in the Southeast and among seven nationwide to receive a 2019 Education Award from the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and
Surveying (NCEES).
The ETSU Dental Hygiene program commemorated 50 years of educating students and providing dental hygiene care for the region. The program first offered an associate degree in 1969 as a result of the Vocational Education Act. Now a bachelor’s degree program, Dental Hygiene is housed in the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences .
Nine new educational offerings were approved or implemented in 2019-20:
B . S . in Microbiology, B . S . in Health Administration, Graduate Certificates in Health Care Genetics and Genomics, Sport Nutrition, Health Data Analytics, Forensic Nursing, Data Analytics, Heritage Interpretation & Museum Studies, Esports Management
A new program allows highachieving high school seniors choosing to attend ETSU or current ETSU freshmen to apply to be accepted directly into Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy through the Early Admission Pathway, allowing students the opportunity to earn both a Bachelor of Science and a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) in six years .
Through its Department of Media and Communication, ETSU has become the first university in the U.S. to earn accreditation from the Digital Marketing Institute, the largest accrediting digital marketing organization in the world .
