The field of interprofessional education and collaborative practice lost a good friend and great colleague on October 17. Maralynne Mitcham, PhD, beloved professor of occupational therapy and assistant dean, College of Health Professions at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), passed away after a long illness.

Over the last two years, she managed her diagnosis with style and grace – keeping friends informed of her travails through the healthcare delivery system at MUSC and Thomas Jefferson University in her periodic “Pirate News” updates.  Maralynne, or MM, was “wicked fun” and a serious scholar in her field of occupational therapy and interprofessional education (IPE). I have many MM stories; some are legendary.

Maralynne and I met around 2002 when she asked me to visit Charleston to advise her on a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) interprofessional community-based grant. At the time, she was creating community-campus partnerships, linking faculty, students and community agencies around interprofessional service learning. This project was truly a vision of an innovative “nexus.”  I was honored to have the opportunity to work with the faculty. Subsequently, I visited Charleston several times, savoring the shrimp and grits and barbeque – but always enjoying attending Maralynne’s “salons.” These were lively conversations and friendship around serious topics involving education and specifically, IPE.

MUSC is an early IPE adopter school, dating back to the 1990s. I remember an inspirational MUSC chapter in an Association of Academic Health Center’s book on IPE in 1999. The IPE efforts were seriously recharged in 2007 when MUSC committed to IPE in their institutional Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) for their Southern Accreditation of Colleges and School (SACS) accreditation plan. Folks, think about it. This institution made IPE the basis for their reaccreditation as an institution. The heat was on. Maralynne was in the middle of the IPE vision and implementation with her colleagues.

The hard-working MUSC faculty and administrators designed a vision, called “Creating Collaborative Care (C3).” Recognized as leaders, they are frequent speakers at professional association meetings and webinars. MUSC is also a National Center Innovations Incubator site, implementing and studying an interprofessional elective course in which students will be trained and certified as TeamSTEPPS raters. The practicum of the course will involve students in live, real-time evaluation of healthcare teams in obstetrics and gynecology.

I’m certain Maralynne was proud of the work that she and her colleagues accomplished together for IPE at MUSC. In 2012, as a tribute to her, her MUSC family honored her by creating the Maralynne D. Mitcham Interprofessional Fellowship for Faculty and Staff. 

And, I know she was very proud of the distinction that she received from the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). 

Here’s her last email to Frank Cerra and me, sharing MMs Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture at AOTA conference in Baltimore on April 4. We had planned to get together last week.

June 18, 2014                                

Frank and Barbara:

Put your feet up and pull out your knitting. You'll need an hour or so if you want to watch the entire session, or there's that handy fast forward button. Actually I'd be keen to know if any ideas catch your fancy and if you think I should do more work with them.
Frank, wonderful to see you today and Barbara we missed you madly. Frank can recount a few good tales!!!

Hoping to come to Minneapolis 16-18 Oct for a Can-Am occupational science conference where we have a research a paper accepted for presentation. I'll keep you posted. 

Cheers from mm tap dancing on her iPad