Texas A&M Health team honored for innovation and presentation at national CLARION competition

A team of students from the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health) earned national recognition at this year’s CLARION Interprofessional Case Competition, taking home the Best Health Innovation Award. Team member Subash Sapkota also received the Best Presenter Award for his individual performance.

The interdisciplinary team included Sapkota and Esther Kim, both Master of Public Health students; Hanan Teklu, third year student in the Doctor of Dental Surgery program; and Cristian Requenez, second year student in the Doctor of Pharmacy program. They credit their success to the strength they found in their differences.

“This event really felt like a team effort to me. We had members from pharmacy, dentistry, and two of us from public health. I think we worked well together, and we learned how much stronger we can be when we function as a team,” Sapkota said.

The team was coached by Sherry Lin, PhD, MPH, instructional associate professor at the Texas A&M School of Public Health, who guided them through both the local and national competitions. The Texas A&M Health Office Interprofessional Practice, Education, and Research (IPER) sponsored the local competition and the team’s participation in the national competition.

To qualify for the national competition, which is hosted by the University of Minnesota, the team first had to win Texas A&M Health’s local CLARION case competition, held in early March. Three teams competed at the local level, and an interprofessional panel of judges from Texas A&M Health evaluated the presentations.

Judges included Lara Coseo, DDS (College of Dentistry), Sharon Dormire, PhD, RN (College of Nursing), Frank North, PharmD, MPA (Rangel College of Pharmacy) and Jack Buckley, MBA, FACHE (School of Public Health). Kyla Brown, a public health student and former CLARION national award winner, served as a peer judge. Sapkota, Kim, Teklu and Requenez’s team earned first place locally and advanced to represent Texas A&M Health on the national stage in Minneapolis.

Competitors were tasked with addressing a case titled, “The Air We Share: Developing Resilient Systems for a Changing Climate,” which Kim said was right up the team’s alley. The case called for teams to evaluate the changing environment and the health complications that can arise from climate shifts that lead to increased risk factors, like flooding, excess heat, shifting patterns of zoonotic diseases, extended allergy seasons and degradation in air quality. With emphasis being on Minnesota specifically, the team was required to do an immense amount of research ahead of preparing their brief.

“Subash and I are getting our master’s in public health with a concentration in epidemiology, which helped a lot in this case. Understanding the importance of evidence-based decision making, we were able to pull up a lot of numbers and facts about Minnesota and that played in our favor,” Kim said.

The proposal that led to the award included several evidence-based strategies to address the issues raised in the case. Some of these included providing public education on wood smoke risks, promoting clean wood and composting, encouraging woodsheds, and replacing old appliances through Project Stove Swap for fire mitigation, Lin said.

Other recommendations were centered on emissions improvements by focusing on electric vehicle advancements and collaboration with industry leaders. They also proposed community and health care initiatives that involved setting up booths and demonstrations at schools and public spaces, partnering with local clinics and centers for subsidized health care, launching the “Go Green” exhibition at the Minnesota State Fair, and assessing health literacy.

The teammates agreed that the road to nationals wasn’t easy since they resided in three cities—College Station, Fort Worth and Kingsville—but they all said it was well worth the work.

“I was the first dental student to sign up for this competition in our school, so I’m hoping from this that it will become more common and that it motivates other students to want to do it and want to do other interprofessional things. I think it’s really important,” Teklu said.

To learn more about CLARION, the local or national competition or how to get involved, visit the IPER website.