This is Not a Drill
The College of Health Professions proves itself much more than basic training for the frontlines of health care
Feature article from the fall 2020 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine
Maura Iversen landed at Sacred Heart in January to assume the role of dean of the College of Health Professions. A few weeks later, taking a break from unpacking her collection of National Geographic back issues, she came upon a chillingly prescient 2017 article in Smithsonian Magazine, asking if the next world pandemic would originate in a then-mostly-unknown province in China.
She snapped a pic of the article, she recalls, and shared it with friends on social media. “I think I wrote something like, ‘I should be unpacking ... but look at this.’” That was early February.
One of the things that attracted Iversen to Sacred Heart was its “emphasis on innovation in learning.” Her career has taken her to Harvard Medical School, Northeastern University and numerous other institutions in Boston and around the world, but the chance to develop interprofessional collaboration in the health sciences, alongside features like SHU’s simulation suite, was an opportunity not to be missed. “Simulations are crucial to developing health-care practitioners who are confident in the face of an ever-changing world,” she says. And then 2020 turned simulation to reality faster—and in more ways—than anyone could have imagined.
When Jody Bortone arrived on campus 20 years earlier, the occupational therapy program she was starting was part of what was then the College of Education and Health Professions that included education and nursing in addition to some core health programs. In the years since, however, the health-care professions have increasingly become both individually specialized and intricately interwoven. Education and Nursing have become their own colleges, of course, allowing the College of Health Professions (CHP) the capacity to both respond to and anticipate the changing landscape of the health disciplines in a much more dynamic fashion.
“As a small University, SHU is able to foster outstanding student/faculty relationships in the classroom and in the research setting,” says nutritional epidemiologist and public health nutritionist Jacqueline Vernarelli, “and nimble enough to adjust program offerings and incorporate innovative teaching pedagogy depending on academic trends and needs.” The new Center for Healthcare Education, for example, provides state-of-the-art facilities with a variety of clinical and research labs, patient-centered clinics and simulation areas to engage students with hands-on and problem-based learning.
What really stands out about the simulations, however, is not so much the problems themselves but the cross-disciplinary responses they require. “Interprofessional collaboration as a theme has been part of my career my whole life,” says Iversen. And for good reason: that cross-functional, collaborative experience mimics what students will see in their professional lives. As Sofia Pendley, co-chair of the Interprofessional Education Committee, observes, by working with students from nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, social work and education, CHP students gain a better understanding of each role, helping them recognize who to contact when they meet similar issues during the course of their careers.
However turbulent 2020 may have been, CHP students now have firsthand experience of the need for interprofessional collaboration in the midst of a pandemic. Current events have turned theory into practice in ways no one could have imagined just months before. Unsurprisingly, the Department of Public Health has been especially active, responding to media requests and partnering with local groups as well as other universities to keep the public informed. But while Iversen, Pendley and Vernarelli may have been the most visibly involved with the response to COVID-19, public health students were actively engaged as well.
Pendley’s course, “Community Health in Times of Crisis,” involving a simulation at the Bridgeport Office of Emergency Management, was already underway before the pandemic hit. In response to the actual health crisis affecting not only the community but the entire world, Public Health graduate students in this course, as well as in Vernarelli’s epidemiology course, worked on weekly situation reports that were sent to the Bridgeport Office and dispersed to community groups, medical offices, secondary schools and SHU. As the need for information increased, the Public Health professors partnered with Pendley’s former colleagues in disaster research and response to augment the scope and scale of reports. Vernarelli explains that “as the pandemic continued and the amount of data collection required ballooned, Sacred Heart joined forces with Public Health students and faculty from Yale University and Tulane University as part of the Sacred Heart-Yale-Tulane Planning and Response Network to produce a series of reports covering the pandemic on a global, national and special population scale.”
In a parallel effort to contain the virus, Pendley points to three students who spent the summer working on contact tracing with the State of Connecticut. Additionally, the CHP created online support groups for clients and alumni, as well as a drive-through hearing aid test and fitting center, and both they and the College of Nursing made donations of personal protective equipment to Yale University hospitals.
That Sacred Heart University in general and the College of Health Professions in particular have found themselves such key players in the response to COVID-19 should not be surprising to anyone who understands the shared mission that drives both.
“Public health is the cornerstone of the health sciences as a discipline,” says Vernarelli. Because of its holistic approach to the various elements that contribute to the well-being of the community, Public Health fits naturally into what Bortone calls “SHU’s emphasis on compassionate learning communities.” Iversen adds that “valuing community service, social justice and respect for others, in addition to excellence in health-care delivery, is how the College embodies the values”—and why students and faculty alike find themselves at the heart of the community’s response to this current crisis.
Looking forward, the College continues to provide leadership, whether through its incorporation of the changes forced upon us all in this “new norm” or through devising and modeling best practices as the College, the University and the world turn their eyes to the future.
On June 8, under phase 1b of Open CT, Sacred Heart’s College of Health Professions was the first of its kind in the state to reopen its doors. Because, as Iversen says, the health professions “place human touch as a focal point in health-care delivery across all domains,” many educational requirements just cannot be provided online. The new dean and her faculty had to be at the forefront of planning how they would open and operate safely in order to allow students to finish clinical skills labs while still complying with all state requirements.
In collaboration with the Office of Public Safety and senior leadership—“I really cannot praise either of them enough,” Iversen says—the College of Health Professions brought 200 students back to campus for the summer to complete their own studies as well as to serve as a “litmus test” of the protocols the University would roll out with the broader opening of campus in the fall. The dean admits that a degree of the program’s success may be because of the inherent hypervigilance health science students bring to navigating a pandemic response. Still, if their students are the models of good citizenship and conscientious behavior, it’s just one more example of the College’s propensity for leading from the front.
Likewise, across the College as across the University, and indeed around the world, adjustments have had to be made to accommodate working remotely. While coursework will be evolving to fit a hybrid model of online learning where possible and in-person classes where necessary, other programs integral to the College’s larger mission need to restructure their work entirely.
Christina Gunther is director of the global health program and the health science program at Sacred Heart. The global health program has been conducting service trips and educational opportunities in places such as Guatemala, India, Mexico, Vietnam and Uganda (to name a few) since 2010. Participation is life-changing for the students, Gunther says, reaffirming the “dignity of every human life, promoting social justice and equity,” and informing the students’ futures as health-care practitioners.
For now, of course, international travel is on hold, and so the program is being conducted virtually. Using online platforms, students participate in an exchange of ideas on such issues as social justice and human rights with students from Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Virtual lectures and guest speakers are also part of the experience. Again, as with the required practice in clinic, nothing beats “being there.” However, the online program allows more students to participate. As such, Gunther hopes the virtual experience will continue alongside the live program once travel is again permitted.
Iversen and Bortone agree that the technology relied upon during the pandemic will continue to increase in importance and application long after this current crisis has passed. Telehealth, for example, will almost certainly continue to play a key role in health care. Iversen points to this and to the increase in assessments being done through mobile apps. “This approach changes the way you teach students to communicate and observe movement,” she says, observing, noting and anticipating yet another emerging complexity in the field.
Another trend that is likely to continue is raised awareness of public health. Pendley remarks that people may not always think about public health when things are going well, but that a situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic causes the nation to recognize “what public health is and why it’s needed.” As a result, “There is much more emphasis on social determinants of health,” Pendley says, once again connecting with the University’s and the College’s emphasis on social justice and the dignity of every human being.
This desire to make a difference in their communities is what drives many in the health professions. As such, Vernarelli says, those students in the College of Health Professions see their role as something more than merely receiving knowledge. They’re there to transform themselves. “You come here and you become the change agent for your community,” she says.