HIPE Hospital Day


Who We Are:

The Healthcare Interprofessional Education (HIPE) Club is a subset of Calgary Students for Interprofessional Collaboration (Calgary SIC). Members of HIPE constitute students from healthcare programs at SAIT: Paramedicine, Diagnostic Imaging, Respiratory Therapy, Medical Laboratory Sciences, etc. HIPE operates through Calgary SIC for collaboration with students from other healthcare faculties outside of SAIT such as: Medicine, Nursing, Social Work, Physiotherapy, etc. Involved in this network are students from schools like University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, and University of Alberta. 

Our mission is to increase awareness of the importance of collaborative work in health care. To bring students from various healthcare programs together and facilitate a greater understanding of interprofessional relations, while destigmatizing outdated perspectives.

Our vision is a better collaborative work to achieve higher standard of care and improve future patient outcomes.

“Interprofessional education... is an opportunity to not only change the way that we think about educating future health workers, but is an opportunity to step back and reconsider the traditional means of healthcare delivery. I think that what we’re talking about is not just a change in educational practices, but a change in the culture of medicine and health-care.”
Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice, World Health Organization, P6.

What We Do:

We actively collaborate to develop and strengthen interprofessional education opportunities for students in health care related faculties of educational institutions in Calgary. 

We design and organize team building events that foster development of positive, team-based culture within health care. Our events help to reinforce student learning and improve future interprofessional relationship between the different health care disciplines. Thus, our goal is to develop sustainable and consistent interprofessional education opportunities for health care students within higher educational institutions in Calgary and beyond. As such, we develop and maintain a repository of interprofessional education initiatives in Calgary. 

What We’re Doing:

One such initiative is the very popular HIPE Hospital Day event, which is organized annually in February during reading week. During this event, part of the SAIT Health And Public Safety building is turned into a mock hospital with an ER, ICU, Wards, Diagnostic Imaging (DI), Medical Labs, and a Paramedicine station. Students from the various health care disciplines are organized into groups (each group consists of MD students, Paramedic students, Respiratory therapy students, Nursing students, and Social work students). Each group gets to perform a simulation exercise in each area of the mock hospital. The DI, Med Lab, and Paramedicine students perform a demonstration exercise as well, to educate each group about those professions. The turnout for this event last year was about 100 students from SAIT, U of C, and Mount Royal.


How You Can Help:

Our goal is to raise $2000 for this event. Your donation will help cover the cost of hiring Actors for the patient roles of the simulation exercises, prizes for participants, and “thank you” presents for faculty members who facilitate the event. Your donation will also help to provide breakfast and lunch for participants as an additional incentive because it is an 8 hour day event. Most importantly, your donation will help sustain this incredible interprofessional education event for another year. Every donation is tax deductible. Thank you!