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Dora Anne Mills, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, vice president for Clinical Affairs, was interviewed by the Presque Isle Star Herald for an article on the importance of interprofessional education for health care professsions students. The article was re-published by the Bangor Daily News on April24, 2015.

According to Mills, teamwork among health care providers leads to better outcomes for patients and fewer medical errors.

Mills shared that during her four years in medical school and three years in residency, she was "never once … intentionally placed with a nursing student or a dental student or anybody else."

"I only trained with other medical students," she stated. "It’s sort of like training the first baseman together with just other first basemen, training the outfielders together with just other outfielders, and so on and so forth, and then on opening day say, ‘OK, now you guys get on the field and play together.’ They don’t really know the language that each other uses; they don’t know the strategies each other uses; they’re all hanging onto a different part of the elephant," Mills explained.

Mills addressed UNE’s longstanding commitment to train students of various health professions in teams, an effort that the University is now expanding, thanks to a grant from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, fully integrating its team approach into clinical settings. Simultaneously addressing a healthcare workforce shortage in rural Maine, 91Ö±²¥ÊÓƵchose Aroostook County as the first area in which to implement its collaborative clinical training.

"We chose Aroostook County to be the first rural area to do this in … We think  that by putting interprofessional teams of students up here that it will increase the chance that they’ll come back to practice," Mills remarked.

In an effort to garner interest among health centers and area hospitals in hosting teams of 91Ö±²¥ÊÓƵstudents, 91Ö±²¥ÊÓƵheld an Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Summit on April 14.