In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, many faculty in the School of Medicine (SOM) were tasked with restructuring courses and content for medical students to ensure they could effectively finish their semesters and be able to engage in unprecedented learning opportunities in a safe and constructive way. Many leaders stepped up to the challenge, and should be recognized for their invaluable contributions to medical education and the UNC Health and School of Medicine community. Our School of Medicine community is grateful for each and every person who pulled together to finish the semester strong.
A true testament to how the SOM community is better when working together is the creation and implementation of the Medical Management of COVID-19 elective for medical students. Stephen P. Bogdewic, PhD, MA (professor and associate chair for faculty affairs in the department of family medicine, executive leadership coach in the office of faculty affairs and leadership development) and Sarah Smithson, MD, MPH (assistant professor in the division of general medicine, assistant dean for clinical education), Johanna Foster, MPA (senior director of academic affairs), and 84 participating faculty led the charge in making the elective successful for the participating students from the classes of 2020, ’21, and ’22.
On March 16, 2020, medical students were pulled from the clinical setting due to the shortage of PPE, which disrupted the learning of close to 600 students, requiring our faculty and staff to develop and implement innovative teaching. At this time, Bogdewic, Smithson, and Foster began working to figure out how to provide education to participating students in a way that was flexible, valuable, and included clinical content that they would be missing from the rest of their semester or potentially longer.
With little time to prepare, they created a four-week elective course for the month of April that focused on COVID-19 and addressed all of the primary buckets of medical education (basic science, clinical science, and health systems science), while also touching on wellness and providing students with the opportunity to participate in service learning. The service learning component was important not only to meet the students’ desire to contribute, but also the community’s needs. Beat Steiner, MD, MPH, senior associate dean for medical student education and professor of family medicine, shared “It is hard to overstate the tremendous work the three of them did in such a short time. In the midst of great uncertainty and a quickly changing reality, they created a highly rated, rigorous course that helped students better understand the pandemic and become better doctors. They effectively engaged other faculty and students. They are true educators and leaders”.
Find the full article in the UNC Health and UNC School of Medicine Newsroom.