Center for Interprofessional Collaboration
At East Tennessee State University, your healthcare training won’t happen in a silo because that is not how real patients experience care. Through the Center for Interprofessional Collaboration, ETSU’s nationally recognized interprofessional education (IPE) program is where you will learn with, from, and about students across medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and health science fields, preparing you to succeed in collaborative, team-based care environments that define modern healthcare.
From day one, you’ll step into experiential training opportunities where communication, shared problem-solving, and respect for each profession’s role drive better outcomes for the patients you serve. Whether your future is in a clinic, hospital, lab, or community setting, IPE ensures you’re practice-ready, confident, and fully equipped to deliver compassionate, coordinated care.
What is Interprofessional Education (IPE)?
Training the Next Generation of Collaborative Healthcare Teams
Interprofessional Education allows students from different healthcare disciplines to learn together in a unique setting.
ETSU stands out nationally due to its robust combination of academic programs and patient-care facilities that elevate the interprofessional experience in healthcare education through the Center for Interprofessional Collaboration.
ETSU’s IPE program is one of the most robust in the region and is deeply woven into the Academic Health Sciences Center. Students participate in one- or two-year IPE pathways, building skills in teamwork, interprofessional communication, role clarity, and shared decision-making.
The Benefits of IPE
Healthcare is stronger when professionals work together. ETSU’s IPE program prepares you to understand the roles of other disciplines, communicate effectively, and approach patient care as part of a coordinated team. This collaborative model not only strengthens your clinical skills but also leads to better patient and community outcomes. By learning alongside peers from five health sciences colleges, you’ll gain real-world experience that mirrors the team-based environments you’ll enter after graduation.
Benefits for Students
- Build confidence through hands-on teamwork by working in teams with other health professions
- Strengthen communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills
- Learn how different disciplines contribute to patient care
- Gain experience that mirrors real clinical practice
- Improve readiness for clinical rotations, residencies, and the workforce
- Develop a more holistic understanding of patient needs
Benefits for Patients
- Receive more coordinated, efficient, and patient-centered care
- Fewer gaps and errors
- Whole-person care
- Better access to healthcare resources
- Gain access to providers trained to understand both medical and social needs
- Improved short- and long-term healthcare outcomes
Hands-On Training Across Our Five Health Colleges
How the IPE Program at ETSU is Making an Impact in Our Region and Beyond
The Center for Interprofessional Collaboration at ETSU represents the university's commitment to interprofessional education, practice, and research and ensures that IPE remains consistent, evidence-based, and embedded across all five health science colleges.
By practicing as coordinated teams, students bring real solutions to real people, ensuring care is not only clinically sound but also compassionate and responsive.
Whether they stay in Tennessee or take their training across the country, ETSU’s IPE graduates carry forward a uniquely Appalachian understanding of teamwork, service, and patient-centered care.
In hospitals, clinics, community agencies, and public health organizations, ETSU-trained providers are strengthening systems, reducing preventable errors, and helping build healthier communities. The impact is local, regional, and national — a reflection of ETSU’s standing as the flagship health sciences institution of Appalachia.
Bishop Hall
The Center for Interprofessional Collaboration at ETSU oversees curriculum development, faculty training, assessment, and student progression to enhance clinical training for students and foster research collaboration. It ensures that IPE remains consistent, evidence-based, and embedded across all five health colleges.
Bishop Hall, where the Center is housed, is where collaboration becomes real, providing students with a variety of high-fidelity simulation labs and state-of-the-art learning facilities.
Students from all five health sciences colleges train side by side at Bishop Hall, where you’ll practice clinical scenarios as part of interdisciplinary teams, learning to communicate, problem-solve, and coordinate care just as you will in real clinical settings.
Bishop Hall ensures you’re not only learning about teamwork, but you’re also getting a chance to put what you learned into action.
