The community moderator program is an initiative that gives users of the Resource Exchange more opportunities to interact with each other – and recognized leaders in interprofessional practice education. Each month we’ll feature a different community moderator to help users determine the best contact for specific questions and topics.

Joe Zorek, PharmD, joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) School of Pharmacy following completion of a two-year Pharmacotherapy Residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. While at Texas Tech University, he developed a clinical specialty in geriatrics with a research focus on interprofessional practice and education (IPE). 

Serving as the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy’s IPE Liaison, Joe co-chairs a school-wide IPE taskforce and is a founding member of the UW-Madison Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, scheduled to launch in April 2016. 

Joe coordinates a first year elective course called “Pathways in Pharmacy Practice,” designed to orient new students to the profession of pharmacy, and co-coordinates a third year elective course devoted to geriatric pharmacotherapy and a teaching certificate program for pharmacy residents. Joe also serves as the faculty advisor for the UW-Madison Interprofessional Health Council, a student group dedicated to advancing IPE on campus. 

Joe and his collaborators won the 2014 Rufus A. Lyman Award for best paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education for their work developing and validating the Student Perceptions of Physician-Pharmacist Interprofessional Clinical Education (SPICE) instrument. He recently won a New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy to support a prospective study exploring the utility of Mimycx^TM, a massively multi-player online serious video game, to advance interprofessional experiential education. 

Joe currently practices as a clinical pharmacist at Dean Health System in Madison, WI.  

As a community moderator, he is available to answer your questions about interprofessional practice and education and help make connections between individuals with similar interests. Learn more about Joe below!

Q:  How did you get started in interprofessional education and collaborative practice?

JZ:  I was a high school psychology and sociology teacher prior to becoming a pharmacist. Because of this background, I became fascinated with the complexity of the healthcare system during pharmacy school; both at the individual and at the organizational levels. Interprofessional practice and education (IPE) offered a lens to explore these complexities and I became intrigued.  When the time came to determine a research focus during my residency it was an easy decision. 

Q:  What inspires you about this work?

JZ:  There are endless scholarly questions within the field to explore and the findings have direct implications on things that are important to me; namely, student learning, healthcare delivery and patient care.

Q:  What are your primary areas of interest?

JZ:  I’m primarily interested in the development and evaluation of interprofessional education models and I find the power of accreditation as a mechanism for change in healthcare absolutely fascinating.  

Q:  What are some interesting projects you're working on now or have planned for the future?

JZ:  I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve done this past year building relationships throughout UW-Madison in order to help move IPE forward on campus. The contributions I’ve made to the development of the future Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education here are a particular source of pride. In terms of IPE model development and evaluation, this month I start recruiting students for the AACP-funded Mimycx^TM study mentioned above. I love video games, so I can’t wait to complete this study.  

Q:  Anything additional to share about the community moderator program, the National Center or IPE?

JZ:  The work of the National Center is inspiring and I’m proud to be part of the community moderator program. The National Center’s website is a rich resource with valuable material for a wide range of people, including students just getting started to researchers at the cutting edge of the field.  

Do you think Joe could help answer your IPE-related questions?  Visit his National Center profile to view his recent contributions and to send him an email.