The President's Newsletter | Issue 2

from The President's Newsletter | Issue 2

by Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

| MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT |

Dear MCPHS Community,

In the coming year, we will all begin to celebrate Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences’s (MCPHS's) history of preparing healthcare leaders for the last 200 years. Over those years we have grown from a small pharmacy school to one of the world’s most comprehensive healthcare universities, serving thousands of students in hundreds of innovative programs. We have evolved into a modern, highly influential institution that advances patient care worldwide. As our bicentennial approaches, my focus is to continue to bring our Community together, grounded in our rich heritage and energized by a shared vision for the future.

Although this past year has presented many unprecedented challenges, I have been very fortunate to engage with Community members across the University, including students, alumni, faculty, and staff, and it is clear that we share a common vision for the future. That vision involves the prioritization of student success; a dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion; a continued emphasis on interprofessional education; unwavering support for our faculty and staff; a commitment to sustainability; and the strengthening of alumni engagement and external collaborations. The constant pursuit of these strategic priorities creates the fabric of “who we are” and “what we do” and forms the foundation of our University’s identity. We are proud to share just a few stories that reflect our commitment to these priorities in this latest issue of the President’s Newsletter.

We are also very excited to share with you the news of the formation of our new Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. This innovative Center creates an environment and framework that fosters a collaborative approach among our Community members in the advancement of their practice, scholarship, research, service, and educational pursuits.

I hope you enjoy our latest issue that celebrates just a few of the many extraordinary people and initiatives that have come to define our University.

/ COVER STORY /

MCPHS Launches the CENTER FOR INTERPROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND EDUCATION

**MCPHS students participating in an IPE Event on the Worcester Campus.**

Interprofessional Practice and Education (IPE) is widely recognized by global health authorities as vital in the preparation of future healthcare leaders. Over the last decade, MCPHS has embraced the importance of collaborative practice in healthcare delivery and has emerged as a leader in IPE among its peer institutions. Today, IPE is integral to MCPHS’s DNA and is at the core of the University’s learning model across all its schools and programs. IPE offers opportunities for students to collaborate and learn from each other across disciplines, expanding their knowledge on how to be an effective member of the interprofessional healthcare team, which ultimately improves patient health outcomes.

The Office of the Provost is pleased to announce the launch of the Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education (CIPE), which will integrate and centralize IPE initiatives throughout the University. With the support of the University’s Academic Affairs Leadership and the IPE Working Groups from all three campuses and online programs, CIPE will serve as a resource for all MCPHS students to engage in IPE practice, education, scholarship/research, and service. Our position as one of the world’s most comprehensive healthcare universities gives MCPHS a unique opportunity to prepare collaborative, well-rounded interprofessional healthcare professionals equipped to make an impact across the globe. The University is fully committed to delivering a truly interprofessional student experience that will be synergized across all programs and campuses.

Already, MCPHS students engage in year-round IPE programming. The Schwartz Center Educational Rounds provide integration of IPE and compassionate care into the curriculum. IPE Book Club events bring together hundreds of students to engage in discussion about healthcare stories from the perspectives of their various disciplines. Just this year, the third annual Interprofessional Student Scholarship Showcase featured oral presentations selected from 21 abstracts submitted by students from the Manchester and Worcester campuses. Graduate programs across all campuses collaborate to host graduate interprofessional events throughout the year with curricular and co-curricular opportunities.

**Interprofessional Case Conference on the Boston campus.**

Implementing IPE within diverse community settings forms an important part of the student experience as well. For example, since 2014, MCPHS has worked with Colony Retirement Homes, a nonprofit corporation with five locations providing independent living apartments to seniors in Central Massachusetts. Through the partnership, students from different disciplines work together to interact with Colony residents, helping run health education fairs, presentations, and events. Just this past March students from six Schools—Acupuncture, Dental Hygiene, Medical Imaging and Therapeutics, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Physical Therapy—presented to Colony residents on “Staying Healthy During the Pandemic” and “What to Expect When Visiting a Clinic.” MCPHS also incorporates innovative IPE experiential learning experiences within its academic schools and on-site clinics and centers: the School of Optometry’s Eye and Vision Center; the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene’s clinic; the New England School of Acupuncture’s treatment center; and the School of Physical Therapy’s Balance, Movement, and Wellness Center. And health profession students participate in team-based immersion experiences in clinical rotations, internships, and field experiences with our affiliate organizations, gaining real-world experience working in collaborative care teams.

Perhaps nowhere is the MCPHS commitment to IPE more apparent than in the breadth of programs we offer. The University’s catalog includes more than 100 degree and certificate programs in disciplines including pharmacy, nursing, physician assistant studies, physical therapy, occupational therapy, optometry, dental hygiene, medical imaging and therapeutics, and acupuncture. Within the School of Arts and Sciences, a wide array of majors spans the healthcare spectrum, including premedical health studies, health sciences, health psychology, health humanities, and public health. This gives MCPHS an incredible diversity of healthcare students, and our curricula are built to encourage them to collaborate and work together extensively and often. Collaboration, in fact, is part of the MCPHS mission: to prepare graduates to advance health worldwide through excellence, innovation, and collaboration in teaching, practice, scholarship, and research and to transform the communities that they will serve.

The organizational structure and governance of CIPE will support a unified strategy for advancing IPE goals even further. Crucial to the Center’s mission will be advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare, fostering interprofessional approaches to transform health disparities and improve healthcare for underserved populations. We are excited about the Center’s future because implementing IPE to help patients of all backgrounds is at the heart of what MCPHS does.

/ ACADEMIC NEWS /

Faculty and Students Win NIH Award for Behavioral Neuroscience Research

Professor for Psychology Amanda Kenter, PHD, has spent her scientific career conducting behavioral neuroscience research. Dr. Kentner and her team, which includes MCPHS undergraduates, study how prenatal or neonatal infection can impact longterm social and cognitive development in animals, as well as how and when environmental enrichment (EE) can remediate or prevent any negative changes caused by these early infections.

The team, which uses mice and rats in its research, defines EE as “physical, sensory, cognitive, and/or social stimulation which provides an enhanced living experience to laboratory animals, relative to standard housing conditions.” The researchers know that early inflammatory challenges disrupt the stress-relieving oxytocin system and can lead to weakened social interactions and cognitive impairments. They have shown that EE affects behavior and changes brain circuitry, and now, with the help of an NIH (National Institutes of Health) Research Enhancement Award, they hope to further understand exactly when EE is most effective. The results will have implications for therapeutic treatment of patients with social and cognitive impairments caused by early infections.

Optometry Faculty Member Appointed to WHO

In November 2020, School of Optometry Professor Thomas Freddo, OD, PHD, was selected by the World Health Organization (WHO) to serve in the Development Group for the anterior segment and adnexa group of eye care specialists. The purpose of this international committee is to create sustainable healthcare development goals for low- to middle-income countries in the United Nations. Dr. Freddo, whose research has always involved the front of the eye, will provide technical input and assistance for the WHO’s Package of Eye Care Interventions which is designed to help these countries to plan, prioritize, and budget eye care services and to integrate those services into their national healthcare plans. Dr. Freddo was nominated for this position by the World Council of Optometry, where he has served on the education committee for six years.

Premed Alum Returns for MPH Before Applying to Medical School

**Maame Esi Adu-Asah (Esi), BS Premedical Health Studies**

Mamme Esi Adu-Asha (Esi),BS (Premedical Health Stu) ’20, is now a Master of Public Health (MPH) ’22 candidate. She first entered the premedical track after working with patients in an undergraduate internship at the Food and Drug Administration in Ghana. Her passion for public health developed after she got involved with the Center for Undergraduate Research. “I realized that public health and medicine are very intertwined,” she says. Upon discovering the Advantage Scholarship, Esi applied to MCPHS’s MPH program. In addition to completing her master’s and studying for the Medical College Admission Test, Esi works at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a radiology authorization specialist. She hopes to work as a physician helping patients affected by issues such as healthcare disparities before using her public health perspective to perform broad-scale research.

MCPHS Students Engage in Distinctive Residencies

On September 13, 2021, Tania Baigi, PharmD ’21, will begin her PGY1 residency at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX. Her rotations will take her to a variety of departments ranging from critical care to internal medicine, though she eventually wants to focus on oncology. Baigi, who speaks Italian, English, and Farsi, hopes to practice internationally one day, bringing her pharmacy skills to the Middle East. She says that her education and career would not have advanced as they have without focused help from MCPHS faculty and staff. “I will be grateful for the rest of my life to MCPHS,” she says.

MCPHS Manchester student Meghan Ferguson, PharmD ’21, recently started her PGY1 residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston. She was drawn to MCPHS’s accelerated program after hearing about the University from a colleague at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s outpatient pharmacy, where she worked for three years.

Ferguson had her sights set on BIDMC from the get-go because of its excellence in research and collaboration, as well as its “extraordinary, innovative patient care.” And, with plans to work as a preceptor one day, she loves that BIDMC works with MCPHS to provide teaching certificates to residents. Ferguson will soon begin her MBA here at MCPHS; she hopes to eventually work in healthcare management.

Occupational Therapy Expands to Worcester Campus

**The newly designed Occupational Therapy space on the Worcester campus.**

This fall, the School of Occupational Therapy is expanding beyond the Manchester, NH, program—which is completing its sixth year—to welcome its first cohort of students at MCPHS Worcester, MA. The Master of Science in Occupational Therapy program will be located in a newly designed space on the fifth floor at 10 Lincoln Square in Worcester. Five occupational therapy faculty members will join the program.

Professor and Program Director Douglas Simmons, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, says he looks forward to adding occupational therapy to the outstanding programs on the Worcester campus.

/ ALUMNI NEWS /

Alum Passes Three Board Exams Within Three Months of Graduating

Nicole LaBrecque, CNMT, RT(N), NMTCB(CT), earned her Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Medicine Technology in December 2020. But even before LaBrecque graduated, she passed the Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board exam. A month later, she passed the Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board for Computed Tomography—for which nuclear medicine technologists usually take a year to prepare— and graduated that same month. She credits her preparedness to MCPHS’s new curriculum, which was designed by Program Director and Associate Professor of Nuclear Medicine Technology David Gilmore, EdD, CNMT, NCT, RT(R)(N), FSNMMI-TS. LaBrecque says, “The program allowed us to do a few weeks’ rotation in a CT department to get all the comps for that exam. So, when I finished the program, I already had all the education and training.” Three months later, she passed the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists Nuclear Medicine Technology certification exam.

Pharmacy Alum Advising U.S. Government on Pandemic Response

Chan Harjivan, BSP ’95, has quite the office address these days: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Harjivan, lead managing director and partner in Boston Consulting Group’s U.S. Public Sector Health Practice, has been working with the U.S. government on its pandemic response. It’s not the first time he has advised a powerful organization: Harjivan has worked with the Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, World Bank, Department of Defense, and National Institutes of Health, advising on matters such as health investments, vaccine development, endemic response, and bioterrorism.

He credits his time at MCPHS—where he met his wife, Drupali Harjivan, BPharm ’94—with setting him on his career path. Director of Institutional Pharmacy Experiences Steve DiPietro helped him get an internship at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and insisted he take it. The experience, Harjivan says, “opened up my whole world of healthcare.”

Harjivan recently published an article detailing how the influx of urgency and money during the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology in healthcare, and he says to be on the lookout for continued innovation.

/ EVENTS/

Commencement Celebrations for 2020 & 2021 Graduates

**Overview of the Commencement ceremony at the DCU center.**

**A recent graduate gets photographed by friends.**

**Gail Phillips Bucher, BSP '63, University Chaplain**

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded during the spring of 2020, it became clear, to the immense disappointment of our Community, that in-person Commencement ceremonies would not be possible. However, the University committed fully to hosting in-person Commencement ceremonies when it was safe to do so. To support an inclusive and engaged planning process, the University created a Commencement Task Force comprised of students, faculty, and staff to look at possibilities for celebrating our graduates. Their short-term solution was to host a virtual ceremony for May 2020 graduates and commit to having face-to-face events for graduates and their families in the future. As the pandemic continued, the Task Force persisted in brainstorming options for upcoming graduates aligned with state and city guidance and best practices for in-person commencements. In this interim period, the academic Schools each hosted virtual academic ceremonies to honor the graduates and recognize their academic achievements. In early 2021, with the distribution of COVID vaccines, came hope for in-person Commencement ceremonies in the summer.

In early August, the Task Force realized its plan with three days of highly successful and safe in-person ceremonies for both 2020 and 2021 graduates held at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. Members of the Board of Trustees, President Lessard, Provost Zeind, and senior academic officials led the three Commencement ceremonies. Even required face masks could not hide the exuberant smiles of graduates and their proud families. Congratulations to all MCPHS graduates!

/ EMPLOYEE NEWS /

Help Desk Heroes: On Campus, All Systems Go

Healthcare workers have been true heroes throughout the pandemic, working on the front lines and saving lives. At MCPHS, there are additional workers who have been essential in keeping operations running smoothly, especially with the sudden shift to remote work and online learning. Many of those key contributors are on the Help Desk team.

While most workers were safely working remotely from home, Help Desk members continued working in person to provide support and assistance to students, faculty, and staff adapting to virtual classrooms and offices. In addition to helping those on campus, they have responded quickly to web tickets, supplied and configured hardware for MCPHS Community members, and spent countless hours troubleshooting problems for remote workers. “Everyone had to adjust to operating in a new way, so it was great to be able to help people and give them one less thing to worry about,” says MCPHS Manchester/Worcester Help Desk Technician Jonathan Montumer. The University managed to thrive throughout the pandemic because of the Help Desk members standing by, ready to answer questions and resolve glitches.

In addition to providing support to MCPHS Community members on-site, MCPHS Boston Help Desk Coordinator Otniel Paniagua says that working on campus daily enabled him and Help Desk Technician Jimmy Kwan to support remote workers and manage hardware updates as well. MCPHS Manchester/Worcester Classroom Support Technician Jason Snell says that there were also many on-site projects throughout the year, such as updating classroom infrastructure to be more compatible with web conference tools. These upgrades, which will benefit the University long after the pandemic is over, exemplify one of the many lasting ways the Help Desk team enhances MCPHS.