As one student moves a tongue depressor in the slow pattern of an “H” through the air, another across the table follows it with their eyes. At the other end of the room, another is watching as a student quickly moves their eyes up and down to the beat of a metronome. These are ways athletic trainers can assess the severity of a concussion in patients, called the Vestibular/Ocular-Motor Screening, or VOMS.

While Moody College of Communication audiology graduate students may not always use VOMS in their patients like this, the vestibular system, a sensory system in our inner ears that gives us our sense of balance and coordination, is something they are very familiar with.

This similarity inspired Kelsey Hatton, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), and Kelvin Phan, a clinical assistant professor in UT’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, to bring two of their classes together.

“This type of learning helps students succeed and brings them out of their niche areas,” Hatton said. “It’s a good lesson to show them how to be integrated with other professionals and how much others can give toward the process.”

This collaboration allowed undergraduates from Phan’s ‘Medical Conditions in Athletic Training’ class and graduate students from Hatton’s ‘Vestibular Sciences II’ class to learn from one another on traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and concussions.

“In our athletic training and sports medicine class, we talk about all the signs and symptoms and then we have to think about where to refer individuals in order to get them specialized care,” Phan said.

In a real-world scenario like Phan describes, an athletic trainer might refer someone who is presenting with vestibular issues to an audiologist to further diagnose the patient and find ways to solve their problems. It’s this type of interprofessional collaboration that UT’s Center for Health Interprofessional Practice and Education promotes and is where the idea to bring these seemingly very different courses together came about.

“I believe in the mission of interprofessional practice because I’ve been the recipient of other people’s knowledge and I think it’s made me a better communicator with my patients and my students,” Hatton said.

The class began with introductions and discussions centering on a peer-reviewed paper about TBI read by each group. Groups were comprised of one or two audiology students, the rest athletic training. Phan then gave an overview of VOMS and asked his students to demonstrate, administer and then teach the assessment to audiology students.

“My favorite part was the hands-on collaboration,” said Raquel Gutierrez, a graduate student clinician in SLHS. “Learning directly from the athletic training students and getting to hear their perspectives on the same issues was a unique experience that shed a lot of light on how they are thinking about problems. It was interesting to see their approach to patient assessment and problem-solving differently than we do, yet in a way that complements what we do in audiology.”

Phan says that understanding different perspectives surrounding the same health-related issues was precisely the goal when deciding to combine the classes. Similarly, they hoped to increase their student’s confidence by getting them to recognize they have retained the skills they’ll need to be able to perform in their professional careers.

“The primary thing for us is for them to learn from each other,” Phan said. “But the other piece is for students to reaffirm their own knowledge. When the audiology students were teaching our students, those may have been things they learned years ago and so it’s like a checkpoint. And the same thing for my students with the skills they were responsible for teaching.”

Later, the classes spent time in the audiology clinic, allowing the audiology students to run various screenings on the athletic training students, walking them through the processes and tests with equipment that their patients experience.

Simeen Jumma, a double major in Exercise Science and Athletic Training, said that she particularly enjoyed this part of the class and being able to experience the technology used by audiologists.

“It was so interesting and enlightening to see how each healthcare field can take a test or any diagnostic tool and formulate it to fit the needs of their specific patient population,” Jumma said. “The testing that we as athletic trainers perform on the sidelines are further advanced through the technology the audiologists use if or when we refer our patients there and I was surprised to learn that the overlap between both of our fields is so extensive.”

Though the equipment and subject matter was serious business, laughs often rang out in different rooms from students getting a chance to look inside one another’s ears while others wore high-tech goggles and watched a red dot move rapidly across a screen.

Both Gutierrez and Jumma said that they think these types of collaborations, especially in the healthcare field, are invaluable and will greatly benefit both of their careers. As such, Hatton and Phan don’t expect this to be the last time their classes with cross paths.

“I fully believe that any and all healthcare professionals should not only be willing to, but be comfortable with interprofessional communication and collaboration,” Jumma said. “In an ideal situation, a patient will see more than one healthcare professional no matter the severity or type of injury which occurs. Having the ability to communicate, learn from one another, and prosper for the betterment of the patient is a key aspect of the healthcare community that is often overlooked.”