The School of Pharmacy at Belmont University has been invited to join Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in a three-year study to bring students in different disciplines together to learn to serve patients as a team.
The study is being funded by a $600,000 grant from The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, who for nearly 50 years has focused resources on improving the education of health professionals.
Through this grant, first-year medical students and first-year advanced nurse practitioner students from Vanderbilt will join with first-year doctoral-level pharmacy students from Belmont University and Lipscomb University and first-year master’s-level social work students from Tennessee State University to learn how to work together more efficiently and effectively.

Eight students from each discipline were selected to participate for a total of 32 students. Since Belmont is sharing the pharmacy discipline with Lipscomb, four students were selected from each school. The four first-year students selected from Belmont were Timothy Smith, Amy Dockendorf, Ruby Burks and Jacqueline Allinder. Eleven new students at Belmont had applied for this opportunity.
The goal of the program is for these students to “see the patient from several different perspectives, resulting in greater appreciation for other members of the healthcare team and increased utilization of those members once they have graduated and are out practicing” says Experiential Education Coordinator Julie Hudgens of Belmont’s School of Pharmacy.
The program begins this fall and students will attend a special half-day of class work and half-day of clinic work together each week, complementing their regular studies. “The program is intended to last the duration of the students’ degree programs” says Dr. Bonnie Miller, senior associate dean for Health and Sciences Education at Vanderbilt. “It is hoped that students further along in the program can mentor new students so that the program can take on a life of its own.”