Dawn Schocken, MPH, director of experiential learning and simulation at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.
When Dawn Schocken arrived at USF Health in 2005, the concept of interprofessional education (IPE) was still relatively new to the field and had not been widely embedded in the way students were taught and trained. That began to change over the next few years, and today USF Health is one of the nation’s foremost champions of IPE, with comprehensive programs embedded into the curriculum that foster collaboration across disciplines and ensure students learn to practice as part of interdisciplinary health care teams.
Part of that trajectory can be credited to Schocken, the director of experiential learning and simulation at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, who has worked to advance the cause of IPE over the past two decades.
For these efforts, Schocken was recently named the inaugural winner of the new USF Health Interprofessional Practice Award, an honor given annually to a faculty member who demonstrates outstanding commitment to interprofessional collaboration and advances IPE initiatives for colleagues and students.
“Dawn has an outstanding history of leadership in advancing IPE at USF through her field, health care simulation. We have benefited greatly from her dedication and she is very deserving of this inaugural award,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, executive vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.
Since joining USF Health 20 years ago, Schocken has helped construct the IPE mission across USF Health, building more than 90 hours of IPE training throughout the medical school curriculum. She has also been the driver behind developing 15 interdisciplinary training modules for all health students. Each module introduces progressively complex situations and patient cases, fostering an environment for interprofessional teams to work together to find the best possible patient outcomes, utilizing skills in communication, patient admission, triage, patient interviewing and patient handoff.
Dawn credits USF Health and Tampa General Hospital leadership for pushing the concept and helping grow it into what it is today.
“It’s exciting to see how much USF Health truly values IPE. There are not many schools across the country that match what we do or come near the level we do it,” said Schocken. “At the end of the day, IPE training translates to better outcomes in the health care field, so it is our patients who benefit the most.”
Schocken received this award at USF Health’s 2024 Interprofessional Education (IPE) Day.