This week’s Faculty Factory Podcast episode is dedicated to exploring interprofessional collaboration and team science with our distinguished return guest, Wendy Ward, PhD, ABPP, FAPA.

Dr. Ward is a pediatric psychologist and serves as Associate Provost and Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock.

Additionally, she is the Director of Interprofessional Faculty Development at UAMS.

As mentioned in the opening moments of today’s interview, Dr. Ward joined us for a podcast interview in 2020 regarding Interprofessional Education (IPE), which provides a complementary resource to today’s discussion. You can access that interview here: https://facultyfactory.org/interprofessional-faculty-development-with-wendy-ward-phd-abpp-fapa/.

Team building in our field is essential because different perspectives tend to solve difficult problems more effectively. In the world of academic medicine, we face massive hurdles coming in many different forms that need to be surmounted on a daily basis. It really is that simple.

Not only will this interprofessional approach set us on the path toward stronger healthcare outcomes, but it also helps secure better research funding opportunities, as pointed out by Dr. Ward.

“We want to connect effective team-based practice with healthcare outcomes or, in the research arena, with securing larger grants,” Dr. Ward said.

We applaud Dr. Ward for her continuous and robust contributions to the Faculty Factory over the years. If you would like to get in touch with her to learn more, you can email her directly at [email protected].

In case you missed it, Dr. Ward also joined us last week for an episode covering leadership skills in academic health centers, which you can find here: https://facultyfactory.org/leadership-skills/.