Increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Allied Health Using Ten Best Practices.

Major events and growing social justice movements have placed a spotlight on health disparities and created an urgency for action addressing racism in healthcare and education. Selected literature highlights the importance of incorporating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) into organizational culture and strategy. This commentary summarizes ten best practices as operationalized at a midwestern college within an academic medical center.

Neuroscience Literacy: "Brain Tells" as Signals of Brain Dysfunction Affecting Daily Life.

The structures and circuits of the central and the peripheral nervous systems provide the basis for thinking, speaking, experiencing sensations, and performing perceptual and motor activities in daily life. Healthy people experience normal functioning without giving brain functions a second thought, while dysfunction of the neural circuits may lead to marked impairments in cognition, communication, sensory awareness, and performing perceptual and motor tasks. Neuroscience literacy provides the knowledge to associate the deficits observed in patients with the underlying deficits in the structures and circuits of the nervous system.

Is interprofessionality a threshold concept for education and health care practice?

Advocated for over the last decade, only recently has interprofessional education and practice been front and center in conversations in allied health. The wide acceptance of interprofessional education and practice, however, comes with its own set of unique issues. In fact, many people may purport to be interprofessional when they are acting in a manner inconsistent with it.

Interprofessional ethics in rehabilitation: the dreamcatcher journey.

In 2003, we led a working conference on leadership in ethics education for physical therapy and occupational therapy entitled, "Dreamcatchers and the Common Good: Allied Health Leadership in Generational Health and Ethics." The institute brought together 25 leaders in ethics education in physical therapy and occupational therapy for a 3-day working conference of experts. In this paper, we discuss our work as part of an interdisciplinary community of ethics educators who have been grappling with ethics education in rehabilitation over the last 7 years.

Guiding principles in a merger of allied health and nursing schools.

Mergers have long been a reality in higher education during periods of financial challenge. More recently, academic mergers have evolved to become a strategy for achieving academic excellence, broadening institutional vision, and solidifying the competitive position of the merged entities. This report summarizes literature focused on critical considerations when evaluating and implementing mergers in an academic environment using a conceptual model adapted from Kotter.

Interprofessional vs. interdisciplinary services in school-based occupational therapy practice.

Interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary service is strongly advocated in school-based occupational therapy practice. The terms, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, however, are not accurate in their use. This paper examines the difference between the terms of discipline and profession and recommends the more precise and appropriate use of interprofession and transprofession related to school-based occupational therapy practice.

Teacher education professionals as partners in health science outreach.

Medical school and other health science outreach programs to educate and recruit precollege students always have relied on successful collaborative efforts. Creighton University shares the value, significance, and strategies of involving teacher education professionals in several of its current outreach programs, including HPPI, Brains Rule! Neuroscience Expositions, and HHMI Build a Human Project. The education department partner serves as an essential team member in the development, implementation, assessment, and dissemination of these projects to promote science and mathematics achievement and interest in medical careers.

Facilitating participation of students with severe disabilities: aligning school based occupational therapy practice with best practices in severe disabilities.

School-based occupational therapy is the largest employer of occupational therapists. School-based occupational therapists work extensively with students with severe disabilities. Over the past decade, one significant change in the field of severe disabilities has been the advocacy of best practices.

Effects of interprofessional rural training on students' perceptions of interprofessional health care services.

Interprofessional training has been advocated in the education of students in health care professions to facilitate collaboration and cooperation among health care providers. This study reported on one facet of the outcomes of a larger grant project funded by the Department of Health and Human Services HRSA grant #1-D36 AH 10082-03, which aimed to develop a new and innovative model for interprofessional student training. Over the 3-year period of the project, a total of 111 students from allied health professions including occupational therapy, physical therapy, and pharmacy participated in the project training.

The 2003 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture. Chaotic occupational therapy: collective wisdom for a complex profession.

In the tradition of Mosey's (1985) Eleanor Clarke Slagle lecture (p. 504) as a road map to where this presentation is going, I will present a short preface and first, talk about her story and our professional identity; second, use chaos theory as a way to look at occupation; third, introduce you to Charlotte's Web of Chaos; fourth, make some conclusions about chaos and occupational therapy; fifth, do an ending to this telling, and; sixth, do a summary and closing.

Occupation reconsidered.

The current article delineates the need for the profession of occupational therapy to maintain relevance and be responsive to current trends. As part of such responsivity, this article proposes a reconsideration of the concept of occupation as an 'adaptive response' to the current societal need for clarification regarding occupational therapy. Reconsideration of what is meant by occupation for general use is discussed and illustrated by the ambiguous use of the term occupation as both a means and an end.

Brains rule! fun = learning = neuroscience literacy.

Brains Rule! Neuroscience Expositions is a project designed to improve neuroscience literacy among children and the general public by applying a model where neuroscience professionals transfer knowledge and enthusiasm about neuroscience through fun, engaging hands-on activities. This educational model draws strength from many national and local partnerships of neuroscience professionals to coordinate expositions across the country in a variety of local communities. Brains Rule! Neuroscience Expositions uses a flexible science fair-like format to engage children in the process of science and teach about neuroscience concepts, facts, and professions.

Improved rural access to care: dimensions of best practice.

This article describes the processes and outcomes of an action research project targeted at describing 'best practice' as experienced by interdisciplinary rural health projects funded by the Quentin N. Burdick Program for Rural Interdisciplinary Training, a Federally funded training grant competition in the USA. Each of 15 rural interdisciplinary health training projects across the areas of mental health, chronic disease, diabetes, minority health, and geriatrics was used to build a qualitative case study representing best practice experiences in projects focused on improving rural access to care.

Annotated bibliography of chaos for occupational therapy.

Given the level of complexity at which the practice of occupational therapy operates, chaos may be the key to fresh insight into the nature of occupation. This article, through an innovative scholarly format-the annotation-presents essential concepts of chaos theory which are relevant for occupational therapy. A rationale for the importance of chaos theory and complexity science is presented and the limited extent to which chaos theory has been addressed in the occupational therapy literature is identified.