Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Novack

Drexel University College of Medicine has received a grant of more than $420,000 from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation to lead a collaborative of 13 medical, nursing and health professions schools with the goal of enhancing each school's education in professionalism and interprofessional communication.

Led by principal investigators Dennis Novack, MD, and Kymberlee Montgomery, DrNP, CRNP-BC, the collaborative will use ProfessionalFormation.org (PFO), an online resource for teaching, assessing and remediating gaps in professional and interprofessional behaviors in health care.

The College of Medicine created this resource in collaboration with the Academy for Professionalism in Healthcare and the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare. Interprofessional project faculty will work with each institution to integrate PFO into existing curricula and create new programs in professionalism and interprofessional teamwork. The PFO faculty will assist in planning for pilot testing of new activities, work with the partner schools to create robust program evaluations and establish educational research, and assist in creating faculty development programs at each institution. At the same time, the project team will identify existing evaluation tools to help faculty and students to monitor students' personal and professional growth, as well as develop new tools where needed. Currently, PFO comprises 13 interactive modules complemented by a sophisticated learning management system.

Novack is a professor of medicine and the associate dean for medical education. Montgomery holds a joint appointment as clinical associate professor in the College of Medicine and the College of Nursing and Health Professions, where she is chair of the nurse practitioner program.