When Marissa Aitken joined a small-group discussion during an Interprofessional Education (IPE) event focused on caring for military service members and veterans, she found herself surrounded by medical students, physician assistant students, an occupational therapy student, and practicing physicians.
As the group discussed a case, Aitken noticed something surprising. "Almost all of the professionals in that room did not know the role a social worker or occupational therapist could hold in healthcare," Marissa recalled.
Like many social work students participating in IPE for the first time, Marissa felt hesitant to speak up. Yet she soon realized that her perspective was essential to the conversation. “Despite my initial hesitancy and feelings of imposter syndrome, I had to speak up and educate my fellow peers in the room,” she wrote in her reflection after the event.
That moment represents exactly what Rutgers School of Social Work hopes students gain through IPE: the confidence to contribute their expertise, collaborate across disciplines, and advocate for the individuals and communities they serve.
Interprofessional Education brings together students from multiple disciplines to learn with, from, and about one another through case discussions, simulations, and collaborative problem-solving exercises. The goal is to prepare future professionals to work effectively in team-based environments where complex problems require multiple perspectives.
At Rutgers School of Social Work, students in select courses and certificate programs, including the Aging and Health Certificate Program, the Certificate on Interpersonal Violence and Trauma Program, Chronic Illness and Disability, and Clinical Social Work in Health Care, participate in IPE experiences each semester.
The initiative is coordinated by Marybeth Ali, Assistant Professor of Teaching and Special Assistant to the Dean for Interprofessional Health Initiatives, who works with partners across Rutgers and institutions throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania to create opportunities for social work students to engage alongside students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, law, occupational therapy, and other fields.
"IPE started back in 2009," Ali explained. "They were trying to push toward integrative care and away from this medical model where the doctors are at the hierarchy and everyone else falls in line with them. With integrative care, everyone has a seat at the table, everyone works together as a team."
While social work has long played an important role in interdisciplinary care, the social work profession formally joined the national Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) framework in 2016, creating new opportunities for social work students and practitioners to participate in these learning experiences.
Today, Rutgers School of Social Work students can choose from more than 30 IPE events each semester. Recent topics have included hospice and palliative care, ethical decision-making, military and veteran services, autism care, oral health, chronic disease management, language access, and collaborations between healthcare and legal professionals.
The events take many forms. Some involve simulated cases that students work through in interdisciplinary teams. Others feature trained actors portraying patients, video-based scenarios, or discussions with individuals sharing their lived experiences. "We have all different types of forums to host and experience these IPEs," Ali said. "It's just exposing our students to the variety that we have."
A central goal of IPE is helping students understand both the strengths of other professions and the unique value of their own. "I bring our social workers into these case scenarios so we can represent social work, and we can also represent Rutgers," Ali said. "We can teach our colleagues about the social determinants of health, about taking a full biopsychosocial spiritual assessment, leaning into the person from a holistic perspective."
Those lessons often become clear during interdisciplinary case discussions. At one event, students were asked to develop a care plan for a woman in her twenties who had suffered an ankle injury while also facing financial hardship, limited family support, and multiple health challenges. Katayoun Marciano observed how each profession approached the case from a different perspective. "The pharmacy student discussed medication options to manage the sprain," she said. "The medical student focused on lab values and possible complications related to diabetes."
Her own focus was different. "My focus was her lack of family support and the psychosocial effects of that," Katayoun said. "She has a lack of support system, and her medical care and financial barriers cause significant problems for her to be emotionally and physically healing."
The experience reinforced the importance of considering the broader circumstances affecting a person's well-being. "My take-away was a feeling of joy and hope for the future of our different disciplines," she reflected. "I think for the newer graduates we are a lot less ego-centered and interdisciplinary work is more cohesive for the client or patient's benefit."
For many students, IPE is as much about developing professional confidence as it is about learning from other disciplines. Sarah Zolt-Gilburne arrived at their first IPE event feeling what they described as "a deep sense of imposter syndrome."
"Who was I to represent the social work perspective?" Sarah asked. "I assumed that the other students would be much more informed and better equipped to contribute to the discussion at hand."
Instead, they found an environment where students learned together while exploring a complex healthcare case involving multiple social, medical, and economic challenges. "It was so energizing to collaboratively discuss the case, to hear interdisciplinary input, and to find that I actually did have something to contribute," Sarah said.
During the discussion, Sarah noticed that they and another social work student were often the ones raising questions about social determinants of health, insurance barriers, and realistic access to care. "We encouraged the group to look at Amy's case more holistically,” Sarah said. Eventually, the dynamic shifted. "In a surprising group dynamic shift, the medical and pharmacology students began seeking our guidance rather than just our input."
For Ali, stories like these demonstrate the transformative power of IPE. "I hope these experiences give students the confidence that they can represent social work anywhere they go at any time,” she said.
She believes the experiences help students recognize that their perspectives are not only valuable but often essential. "It's kind of chipping away at that imposter syndrome some of them have coming through and knowing that their voice matters," she said. "There is an equitable space for all of us in any profession that we cross through."
Beyond building confidence, IPE helps students understand that effective care requires collaboration. For MSW student Meghan Dolan, one of the most valuable lessons came from hearing directly from students in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. "The most significant part of this learning experience for me was hearing from fellow student colleagues across pharmacy, medicine, and nursing specialties, in real time," she said.
The experience reinforced a principle she plans to carry into her professional practice. "One person cannot wear all the hats," Meghan said. "Knowing the limits of one's own expertise and being able to lean on the strengths of colleagues in an interdisciplinary setting can help provide a well-rounded and personalized treatment plan."
That understanding reflects the broader purpose of IPE: preparing students for the realities of professional practice, where collaboration is often the key to addressing complex challenges. "As a future social worker, this broadened my perspective on who should be included in care planning and advocacy efforts," said student Brooke Coccio after participating in an IPE event focused on an older adult with multiple chronic health conditions. "I recognized that social workers are in a key position to facilitate communication across disciplines."
Ali believes social workers play a particularly important role in helping interdisciplinary teams understand the broader contexts shaping people's lives. During planning meetings and case development sessions, she often advocates for incorporating issues such as transportation barriers, housing instability, language access, financial hardship, and other social determinants of health.
"We put in the extra spices to their life," she said with a smile. That perspective frequently changes how other disciplines think about a case. "After every event, they usually pause and say, 'Wow, I didn't realize social work did that. I didn't realize I can use social work this way,'" Ali said.
At the same time, social work students begin to see how broadly their skills can be applied. "They know that they can sit anywhere," Ali said. "They can work in a law firm. They can work in a school system. They can work in the prison system. They can work in medicine."
Since taking over leadership of the initiative several years ago, Ali has expanded opportunities from just a handful of events each semester to more than 30. She continues to build partnerships with institutions across the region while seeking ways to make IPE available to even more Rutgers School of Social Work students. "I want them to have choice and I want them to have exposure," she said.
As healthcare, education, public policy, and community services become increasingly interconnected, the ability to work across disciplines is more important than ever. For Rutgers School of Social Work students, Interprofessional Education offers an opportunity not only to learn from future colleagues, but also to discover the strength of their own professional voice.
For students like Aitken, that lesson can be transformative. "I learned that I can have something useful, pertinent, and important to share, and feel discomfort at the same time," she said. "I hope to continue to find my voice in social work, and to speak loudly and confidently when advocating for positive change in my future social work practice."
That confidence, and the understanding that social workers belong at every table where decisions about people's lives are being made, may be the most important lesson of all.
