LINC Simulation IPE Initiative

Dr. Amir Begovic, M.D., earned his medical degree from Creighton University School of Medicine in 2021. He matched at UT Health San Antonio for internal medicine residency. After residency, Dr. Begovic was selected as the Chief Resident of Quality, Safety, and Procedures. In this role, he focused on improving procedural competency and advancing ultrasound-assisted procedures within the residency program. His interests include simulation-based medical education and point of care ultrasound use in bedside procedures. Following his chief year, Dr. Begovic will join the South Texas VA as a hospitalist. ×

Dr. Monney is an accomplished educator with over eight years of teaching experience. She strives for teaching excellence and utilizes multiple teaching modalities to ensure student understanding. Dr. Monney has a passion for teaching and believes that it is her professional responsibility to assist in the education of the nurses of tomorrow. She has a strong interest in simulation with twenty years of high-fidelity patient simulation experience. Dr. Monney is a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE) and has given several presentations on simulation and assisted other nursing programs in developing and implementing their curricular-driven simulation programs. She believes that debriefing is the key to student learning and that it is essential to follow the INACSL Simulation Standards. She has been involved in interprofessional education for several years in the school of nursing and has participated in the LINC IPE group for the past year.
Dr. Monney is currently the Interim Director of the Center for Simulation Innovation for the School of Nursing. ×

Diane Ferguson, B.S.N., RN, is the Director of the HEB Clinical Skills Center at the University of Texas Health San Antonio. The Center focuses mostly on Simulated Patient/Participant simulation. Diane has been in SP education since 1995. She serves on the LINC Simulation IPE Initiative. ×

Dr. Sohini Dhar is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Comprehensive Dentistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio). She is a board-certified specialist in Dental Public Health, with over 15 years of experience in academic, clinical, and community health settings.

Her professional journey spans academic appointments at institutions including NYU Langone Dental Medicine and A.T. Still University. Dr. Dhar’s teaching portfolio includes both predoctoral and postdoctoral education, focusing on epidemiology, behavioral sciences, environmental health, dental public health, and service-learning. She has played a key role in curriculum development and research mentorship, particularly in interprofessional settings involving dental, nursing, and physician assistant students.

Dr. Dhar’s research and service efforts are centered on improving access to oral health care for vulnerable populations, including older adults in nursing homes and underserved rural communities. She has served as principal investigator and co-investigator on several federally and state-funded grants, and leads initiatives focused on interprofessional education associated with HPV prevention, rural oral health care, access and workforce development in oral health care, and geriatric dental care. Her work has been widely presented at national conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Dental Education, Journal of Public Health Dentistry, and Ethnicity & Health.

In recognition of her contributions to the field, Dr. Dhar was inducted as a Fellow of the International College of Dentists in 2021 and has received honors including the Leverett Award (AAPHD) and the Outstanding Graduate Student Award. She is actively engaged in professional service, holding leadership roles with the American Association of Public Health Dentistry and the American Dental Education Association. Dr. Dhar also serves as a journal reviewer and abstract reviewer for major conferences in public health and dental education. ×

I am a US-certified Occupational Therapist, Registered (OTR) currently licensed in the state of Texas. I joined the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio as a faculty member in August 2022 after working for the University of North Carolina (UNC) System for 13 years. For more than 30 years, I have been working with people with mental illness and substance use disorders as a clinician, educator, and researcher. My current practice setting is in academia where I provide educational training for future occupational therapists while I continue to have direct interactions with the client population with mental illness through research and student training. I have seen health disparities between people with serious mental illness (SMI) and the general population, and I have done a few community engagement research projects. In the past three years, my colleagues and I conducted a photovoice study to explore the subjective experiences of managing Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) through the lens of patients with SMI, which led us to developing Lifestyle MIND, a lifestyle intervention targeting people with SMI. We have pilot-run the intervention protocol of Lifestyle MIND with two small cohorts. We are proposing this pilot and feasibility study to further pave the way for future efficacy and effectiveness studies. ×