Jill Cuba

About

Department/School/Campus: Center for Simulation Education and Institute for Transformative Interprofessional Education (both part of former Health Sciences Campus)

Campus: HSC

Years at Loyola: 3.5 years as full-time staff; I worked as a Standardized Patient in the CSE’s Selfridge Clinical Skills Center for 3 years before that

What is your favorite thing about working at Loyola? The opportunity to make a positive difference in people’s lives, not only directly and immediately, but for the broader population and far into the future as well.

What is your most memorable achievement as a Loyola employee? Being part of the CSE and I-TIE teams’ swift and effective transitions from in-person to on-line instruction during campus closure. Within a couple of weeks, the CSE team was able to resume standardized patient exams/encounters for medical, nursing, and social work students remotely over Zoom. The CSE and I-TIE teams together transitioned a twice-monthly interprofessional simulation involving LUC medical and nursing students, as well as pharmacy students from Chicago State University, to innovative hybrid simulations with faculty serving as on-campus avatars for the remotely situated students! The I-TIE team presented two Zoom-based interprofessional education sessions on “Infection Prevention in the Age of Covid,” for hundreds of students from SSOM, MNSON, Parkinson, and Environmental Science, among other LUC schools, with a panel of interprofessional facilitators and experts from within and outside LUC. This also became the subject of a webinar we presented to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. And those are just some of the recent highlights!

What does Loyola's mission mean to you? Dedication to justice and equity in both my personal and professional life

What motivates you to succeed each and every day? The people I work with. Every one of my co-workers devotes themselves wholeheartedly to the educational mission of Loyola and the work of our team on behalf of the students. They are innovative, driven and compassionate. Donna Quinones, the Senior Director of the CSE, is the hardest working, most resilient person I have ever met. She and I-TIE co-directors Drs. Fran Vlasses and Aaron Michelfelder model teamwork, innovation, and unwavering commitment to excellence every day. Their generous mentoring is invaluable.

Tell us how you show your Rambler pride: By sharing our internal LUC successes with the broader community at conferences and through publications and presentations (plus wearing the occasional t-shirt, hoodie, or Sr. Jean tube socks!)

Tell us something most people at Loyola would be surprised to know about you: I once performed with the Texas Girls’ Choir on the steps of the U.S. Capitol!