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When two Dal students entered a competition together last spring, they had no idea they would develop a friendship, revive the Dalhousie Health Sciences Students’ Association, (DalHSSA) and then host a national conference for 130 participants, but that’s exactly what happened when Medical student Madeleine Bohrer and Respiratory Therapy student Meghan Beals got involved in their first Health Care Team Challenge. The Challenge involves collaborative teams of students from diverse health professions competing with similar teams to develop the best patient care plans.

“We went to the Nationals and got so excited about it, we wanted to try it again, so we decided we needed to host the National Challenge at Dal!” explains Madeleine.

Madeleine and Meghan drafted six other health students to join them, and the group quickly pulled together a 20-page proposal to host the National Health Care Team Challenge at an interprofessional health conference at Dal. They won the bid last October, and suddenly the students had a big conference to organize, and six months to organize it.  First they had to revive DalHSSA, which had been inactive for the past few years.

“It was daunting.  Incredibly daunting!” recalls DalHSSA member and Pharmacy student Ellie Salsbury.  “I’ve never seen such a big dream actually happen and get turned into a real event—it was amazing and made me excited to take on more.”

Allison Keeping, a Respiratory Therapy student, added, “How exciting it was to see all our hard work pay off once the conference started and how rewarding it was to get positive feedback from our delegates!”

A bonding experience

The students took on the challenge of organizing the conference on top of their already-demanding schedules.  They say they had some struggles—but overall it was a bonding experience because they got out of their individual professions and “silos” and worked on a common project.

“As a dental student, I don’t get to leave the Faculty of Dentistry very often to collaborate with other health professionals, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of DalHSSA and to be on the planning committee for the NaHSSA conference,” says Abby Barton. “I met some great people from various faculties who I now call my friends.” 

“The conference was an incredible experience,” says Nursing student Kyle Warkentin.  “We brought like-minded people together from across Canada and it was an excellent way to gain experience that will help us once we graduate.”

“Helping with selecting abstracts and interacting with students from across Canada was incredibly rewarding,” agrees Connor McGuire, from Medicine. “Students seemed surprised that we were accepting abstracts from such varied fields but that was the whole point. It allowed interprofessional mingling between professions that may not usually interact.”

The conference occurred right on the heels of a successful Interprofessional Health Week, also organized by DalHSSA. That week was a mixture of education and fun, and included an evening lecture series, Trivia Night and the local Health Care Team Challenge.

Members of DalHSSA gave credit to their faculty and staff supporters (Anne Godden-Webster, Cynthia Andrews, Barb MacDonald, Diane MacKenzie, Ken Moors, Cheryl Brown and Trudi Smith from Dal, and Kathy Johnston and Mary Thibeault from the IWK Health Centre) for their direction on the bigger decisions that made the conference a success.  Although they won’t be hosting another national conference, at least not in the near future, the group has big plans for next year. They are planning social events, an interprofessional health week, and opportunities for students to volunteer in the community at food banks or clinics.

“We also want to be a support network for health students next year, and build better links between the many students’ societies and the 22 different programs in the 3 health faculties,” says Health Administration and Law student Heather Webster.

Get involved

At the top of DalHSSA’s to do list:  bringing in more members.  Learn more at www.dalhssa.com