Welcoming Dr. Michael Oldani, Medical Anthropologist, to UB as Executive Director for IPE

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am thrilled to announce that Michael Oldani, PhD, will be joining the University at Buffalo as the executive director for interprofessional education (IPE) for health sciences, effective October 1. Dr. Oldani brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise, having served as the university director of interprofessional practice and education at Concordia University Wisconsin, as well as a professor in the School of Pharmacy for the past nine years.

Dr. Oldani is a trained medical anthropologist, earning his PhD from Princeton University. His initial clinical ethnographic work, sponsored by a US-Canada Fulbright scholarship, began in Manitoba, where he studied collaborative care teams and examined the racial prescription of psychotropics for Anglo and First Nation children with behavioral disorders. His research has critically examined the impact of pharmaceutical sales and promotion on provider prescribing practices, changes in psychiatric practices during the pharmaceutical era and medical and prescribing practices within vulnerable populations, such as the incarcerated mentally ill.

Dr. Oldani’s recent research has focused on collaborative deprescribing, the role of focused ethnography within interprofessional medical education, the impact of collaborative practice agreements on chronic disease management, such as Type II Diabetes, and medical entrepreneurship and the prescribing of ketamine. His scholarly contributions include publications in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Anthropology and Medicine, and the Journal of Interprofessional Care. In May 2023, he co-edited a special volume of the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics on “IPE and Innovation” with Erica Y. Chou, MD, from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

During his tenure at Concordia University Wisconsin, Dr. Oldani secured external funding for interprofessional education through HRSA, the US-Fulbright Program, the Council of Independent Colleges, the Retirement Research Foundation, and an NSF-I-Corp grant. His forthcoming book, “Tales from the Script,” is contracted with Duke University Press. He is a founding member of the Health Education Special Interest Group for the Society of Medical Anthropology and serves as the co-chair for the Complementary/Alternative Medicine Special Interest Group. In 2024, he was nominated for president-elect for the Society of Medical Anthropology within the American Anthropological Association.

Dr. Oldani’s teaching interests include interprofessional education, conflicts of interest within the US pharmaceutical marketplace, global health, and clinical/focused ethnography for health care practitioners. We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Oldani to our community and look forward to the innovative contributions he will bring to our institution.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Nicholas M. Fusco, PharmD, for his exceptional service as interim IPE executive director over the past year. 

Finally, thank you to Jean Wactawski-Wende, SUNY Distinguished Professor and dean of the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions, for her exceptional leadership as chair of the search committee. Together, their efforts have been instrumental in securing such a highly qualified candidate.

Best wishes,

Allison Brashear, MD, MBA
Dean, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Vice President for Health Sciences
University at Buffalo