For the just completed school year, 2025-2026, I had the privilege of being a Community Teacher with the Center for Interprofessional Health at the University of Minnesota. This was a unique opportunity to share our experience with health care students.
What does a Community Teacher do?
Our role is to give students from various health care areas such as nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and other programs the opportunity to interact closely with someone who is engaged in the health care system. In our case the students in our cohort were particularly interested in our interaction with health care providers and where we felt gaps existed.
The University of Minnesota’s 1Health Interprofessional Education Curriculum is designed to teach students from all health professions the essential skills for a successful career in patient-centered, team-based care. Your real-life healthcare experience is invaluable in helping students understand the critical role each profession plays in a healthcare team.
Community Volunteers | Center for Interprofessional Health
Meet our cohort
We had four students in our cohort.
- Emma Kellgren, Master of Nursing, LinkedIn
- Alysha Kruger, occupational therapy, LinkedIn
- Ryan Leriche, medical student, LinkedIn
- Connor Veldman, medical student
We met with them three times during the school year. They brought the questions. Sheila handled most of the answers for me as they were related to our situation and the medical care we received throughout the process. Each meeting was about an hour long on Zoom.
The first two meetings were focused on discovery. The students brought starter questions and would ask follow up questions based on our answers. We were able to open their eyes to the world of ALS.
Most health care professionals are neither exposed to nor prepared to care for people with ALS. We hope our time with these students will better prepare them to care for people with ALS.
The final meeting was a review of the paper they created from our meetings. I am putting some of their content in the next section. We were very pleased with the work they did. We were glad that we could participate in their education.
Some excerpts from the paper
“Steve’s biggest strength is his resilience and belief in God’s larger plan; he is hopeful in the face of pain and the progressive illness that he lives with. He emphasizes that he has a purpose to pursue each day, one that includes exploring his hobbies and laughing with family. His adaptability is admirable, too: as mentioned above, he has integrated many different technologies into his life that have helped him to live with a better ability to do what he enjoys.”
“The local hospital in Frankfort lacks the ability to offer meaningful care for Steve, which means they have to travel to Lexington, which is a thirty-plus minute drive. An example Steve shared is that the ER in Frankfort cannot change his tracheostomy tube as they do not have the right tools and tubing on hand, calling for them to travel to the further hospital.”
“Both Sheila and their niece have provided a critical care taking role in filling in this gap in medical care themselves.”
“Over the course of our meetings, our group consistently reveled in the fact that Steve and his wife, Sheila, were so incredibly well-adjusted given the circumstances.”
“The one concrete recommendation that we would make to Steve and his family would be to set up visitation hours to be able to connect with people from the church more regularly.”
“Something unexpected we learned about resilience and the importance of finding purpose in whatever circumstance we find ourselves.”
If you are interested in reading the complete paper including the cover letter from the school, you can find it here.
Wrap up
This was a good experience for us and we look forward to doing it again. If you are interested in participating in the program, click here for more information. Thank you Emma, Alysha, Ryan, and Connor for allowing us to be part of your education. A huge shout out to Ryan for managing the schedule. I know that wasn’t easy.
One final thank you to our daughter Mikayla Hubbard for making us aware of this program.
