Fulbright Scholar

JOHNSON CITY (Feb. 9, 2018) – A faculty member in the East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship award that will take him to Ireland later this year.

Dr. Brian Cross, an associate professor and vice-chair in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, will spend several months overseas working with faculty at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). The focus of his work will be interprofessional education and teaching others how to best provide team-based care.

Cross was among six ETSU faculty and administrators to visit Ireland and Scotland last spring, serving as consultants and collaborators in interprofessional health care practice and education. The Fulbright award will allow Cross to continue those efforts with RCSI.

“They have research right now where they have embedded pharmacists in general practitioner offices in Ireland,” Cross noted. “I’m going to be working with them on that process.”

Cross will also help with the creation and assessment of new interprofessional learning experiences in RCSI’s curriculum.

“Receiving the Fulbright Scholar award is humbling,” said Cross, who serves as the director of ETSU’s Interprofessional Education and Research Committee. “It is validation of our interprofessional program here at ETSU and gives us, and what we are doing, the stamp of approval on a much larger, international level.”

The goal of the federal Fulbright Program, which operates in more than 155 countries, is to increase the mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. Participants are chosen for their academic merit and leadership and have the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Approximately 1,200 U.S. scholars receive Fulbright awards each year.