Michael Oldani, director of interprofessional practice and education at Concordia University Wisconsin and professor in its School of Pharmacy, has been appointed executive director for interprofessional education (IPE) at UB, effective Oct. 1.

Oldani will also have a faculty appointment in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

“Dr. Oldani comes to UB with extensive experience, including his role as the university director of interprofessional practice and education at Concordia University Wisconsin and as a professor in the School of Pharmacy,” says Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences at UB and dean of the Jacobs School. “Dr. Oldani’s expertise spans collaborative care, the impact of pharmaceutical practices and innovative approaches in medical education.” 

Oldani is a trained medical anthropologist. He earned his PhD from Princeton University. His initial clinical ethnographic work, sponsored by a U.S.-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.

He has conducted research that critically examines 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.

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 2 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 from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

During his tenure at Concordia University Wisconsin, Oldani secured external funding for interprofessional education through the Health Resources and Services Administration, the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Council of Independent Colleges, the Retirement Research Foundation and the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps.

His book, “Tales from the Script,” is forthcoming from Duke University Press. He is a founding member of the Health Education Special Interest Group for the Society of Medical Anthropology and serves as co-chair for the Complementary/Alternative Medicine Special Interest Group. In 2024, he was nominated president-elect for the Society of Medical Anthropology within the American Anthropological Association.

Oldani’s teaching interests include interprofessional education, conflicts of interest within the U.S. pharmaceutical marketplace, global health and clinical/focused ethnography for health care practitioners.

Nicholas Fusco, clinical professor and head of the Division of Education and Teaching Innovation, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been serving as interim director of interprofessional education, following the retirement in 2022 of Patricia Ohtake, associate professor emeritus in the School of Public Health and Health Professions and UB’s first director in the position.