After 5 days in Telluride, I feel excited, motivated, knowledgeable, and empowered. I am so thankful for this experience, and I honestly believe this past week has changed the course of my time in medical school. Over the past year I have been searching for an organization, a project… something that I can be passionate about outside of schoolwork. I wanted something that I can make my own, that creates visible results, and that makes a real difference in patient care. With the encouragement of the other students and of Telluride’s faculty, I am confident that patient safety improvement can be the endeavor I have been looking for. I am so excited to work with Emma, my classmate and fellow Telluride alum, on founding MU Med’s IHI student chapter and working to make meaningful changes to the curriculum of our interprofessional program. We hope to bring this past week’s lessons and activities back home and to recruit our peers to a new culture of patient safety. We hope to dispel any negative attitudes in our own class, and to lead by example when interacting with the incoming first year class. We hope to learn about MU Health’s previous successes and current initiatives, and to bring new ideas to the table.

Thank you to the faculty and supporters of AELPS for giving me the resources, motivation, and confidence I need to make a difference. I can’t wait to get started.