Town Hall: Making education work remotely on the fly

[Joe Guglielmo]
Welcome to the School of Pharmacy Town Hall COVID-19 update. I'm Joe Guglielmo, Dean of the School of Pharmacy. And I'm going to follow a very similar script as we have in the past. But first, I want to remind you of a few things. A few tips before we begin, your audio and video will be automatically muted. Only the panelists can unmute themselves. The chat function is disabled. So for the audience, anybody who has questions, please do use the Q&A feature. Any outstanding questions, we'll try to answer an email or, if anonymous, at the next town hall, but all the questions you have we will hold till the very end when our various individuals can answer them as they come in.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So as before, I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the statistics, where we are worldwide, U.S., California, and locally, and then on to UCSF. So starting with the world, literally as of an hour ago, we were at almost 6 million infections in the world, at least those that we know of. And of those we had 360,412 deaths. In the United States, we have, also within the last hour, 1,765,000 infections of that group. There are at this moment, 102,203 deaths. So if you think about that a little bit, of the 360,000 or so deaths in the world, we're approaching approximately a third of those at 102,000 at the present time in the United States.

[Joe Guglielmo]
At the moment, we're averaging about 1,200 deaths per day in the United States. And the University of Washington, who I often try to highlight because of their projections on COVID infection as well as deaths. At this moment, they are predicting, in the US, 131,000, 132,000 really, deaths and they always give the date August 4. Now, for what that's worth, if you do a little bit of math here, if we're sitting at 102,000 deaths in the US right now, and at the moment, if it stays stable at 1,200 deaths per day, the University of Washington projections could be quite a bit higher than that, approaching 200,000 deaths, by August 4, 2020.

[Joe Guglielmo]
In California at this moment in time, we have listed 103,302 infections. And we have just topped 4,000 deaths in California. I think if you've been staying in contact with the local news, you will know that we have now had a bit of a surge again in the San Francisco Bay Area, nothing like has taken place elsewhere. But the primary place where the surge has taken place has been in Alameda County. Otherwise, if you look California wide, we still have very little infection and death in the northern part of the state. The predominant infections and deaths really have been in Los Angeles County, Riverside County, and San Diego counties. And then in addition to that, we do have a little bit of an outbreak in the Central Valley and that's in Kings County. And not surprisingly, for those of you who are following this, that seems to be associated with a meatpacking plant in Kings County.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Back to the University of Washington predictions, they, as of two days ago, they predicted and I'll say again, at this moment, we have 4,000 deaths today in California. University of Washington is predicting about 7,500 deaths by August 4. But to give you a little bit of sense, with those predictions, I'll remind you, they have given a prediction for August 4th every week. And the last time we had a town hall, their prediction, and that was May 8, their prediction was 4,666 deaths by August 4, so think about that. And the week before that, they only estimated approximately 2,000 deaths. So now they're all the way up to projecting more like 7,500 deaths by August 4. So a lot of this has to do, I think the kinds of folks that we are now recognizing that are coming down with COVID, particularly nursing home related, a lot of these folks, the death rate is much higher than what they predicted before, when they were unaware of how bad the epidemic has been in our nursing homes.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Talking about UCSF, where are we at the present time? As of Tuesday, we had a total of 14 patients hospitalized between the various hospitals we're responsible for. One of those 14 patients was a child. Half of these patients required ICU stay, and some of them were in Parnassus, and some of them were at Mount Zion. If you want to know a little of the epidemiology at UCSF, of the 13,000 patients that have been tested to date, we have had a 1.8% positivity rate. However, if you take those patients who actually had symptoms when they were tested, the rate is more like 3% positivity in those patients. The totals at UCSF are the following. As of yesterday, we had treated our 104th COVID-19 patient. Half of the UCSF patients have required ICU stay. And as of yesterday, we experienced our sixth death associated with a hospitalized UCSF patient.

[Joe Guglielmo]
In a little bit of good news relative to UCSF Health, as you know, the census has been intentionally brought to less than 50%, when we expected the relatively horrific surge we thought was coming that did not come, fortunately. Therefore, the census has started to increase, they've started to relax elective surgical procedures and others. At the moment, as of yesterday, the census had increased to 694 total patients. And to give you a sense on what that means, that is about 80% of what UCSF Health was experiencing in the acute care setting patients pre-COVID-19. The operating room cases are up 131 percent and the clinic visits are up 41 percent.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Moving away from the statistics specific to COVID, I think you all are aware now there are relatively strict protocols now in place for all of us, even in performing essential on site duties. And I think you know, for those of you that are not in essential duties, approval is required, and that initial approval would come from the Dean's Office. And depending on the number of people that is necessary, it would be floated higher in the command chain, if necessary. If in fact you are coming to campus, single entry site for most of the buildings is now in place. And you have to have gone online and in fact, used the app that I think you're all aware of, to really mandate a daily screening to suggest that you are healthy enough to be able to come in. And then we are starting to move forward with the workplace safety procedures, which are recorder for office and lab work.

[Joe Guglielmo]
The last thing I'll say: the fiscal inevitabilities are starting to crystallize. You all know that Governor Newsom reduced the amount of money that went to the University of California [by] 10%. And you know that Janet Napolitano suggested that we also be prepared for a 10% reduction coming to the respective campuses. Now, I will tell you at this moment in time, our chancellor and his leadership team are still arguing with the University of California, that in fact, we be considered not equal to the other nine campuses. And number two, that we'd be allowed to fix our own fiscal issues. So in other words, we do not want to hear a mandate from the University of California that there has to be X number of layoffs or X number of furloughs or any sort of universally mandated sort of procedure at all. We are requesting that we are allowed to handle our fiscal crisis ourselves. Similarly, the various individuals including myself, as one of the control points on behalf of School of Pharmacy, I have requested that the same be afforded to the School of Pharmacy, that once I understand what sorts of fund reductions are going to take place with the School of Pharmacy, that it not be mandated how I and my colleagues fix this, and I will probably be dealing with everybody else in the same way as it comes to that. At this moment, regardless of the percent sort of reductions we're expecting from the Chancellor, at this moment, I am not expecting layoffs or furloughs for the next fiscal year.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So moving away from that, we are at a moment in time that we are slowly but surely returning to campus. We're trying to do it as safely as possible, while still maintaining our community as best as we possibly can. And because of that, we decided that we needed a very special presentation this week, really to look at what's happening on the ground in the midst of the COVID-19. Specifically, the things we want to address are number one, how are faculty members changing how they teach in the PharmD degree program? And how are PharmD students adjusting to the enormous changes and how they're learning during the pandemic and how they're coping. Again, we will hold all questions for our colleagues until the end. So for the beginning, the first one, the impact of the pandemic on faculty and how they teach will go for about 20 minutes. This will be an interview format. I'd like to introduce the four PharmD degree programs teachers to be interviewed. They include Dr. Igor Mitrovic, who led the renal theme, Dr. Cathi Dennehy who led the gastrointestinal theme, Dr. Jen Cocohoba, pharmacy practice skills leader, and Dr. Valerie Clinard experiential education leader. Grant Burningham, the school's editorial director will lead the interview. Grant.

[Grant Burningham]
Thank you, Joe. So as we all know, it was just three months ago when we suddenly had to change gears and move our entire education program online. So today, we're going to talk to some of the people who actually made that happen with a huge amount of effort, picking up new skills and adjusting their teaching methods. I'm going to start with a question from Igor, who is the director of the renal block and was really the first one to have to deal with this shelter in place order. Igor are you on?

[Igor Mitrovic]
Yes, I am. Can you hear me?

[Grant Burningham]
Yeah. So as director of the renal block, you kind of get this huge assignment first. When the shelter in place order went into effect, were you worried about connecting with students when they weren't going to be in the room? Being able to get them all the material that you that you normally would? And overall, what was the transition to virtual learning like?

[Igor Mitrovic]
So just like everybody, probably, I was afraid how this is going to change the student experience and our experience with the students. As you know, our curriculum requires a lot of interaction between faculty and students and on occasion support, and all of us have worked hard to create and foster that environment. But yes, I was certainly concerned about what transpired with this new curriculum.

[Grant Burningham]
Kathy, you are in charge of the gastrointestinal block, which was next for students. And I know that you like everybody else are using Zoom. What are the other tools that you use, and how do you keep class interesting?

[Cathi Dennehy]
I mean, I think we're really fortunate because we do have a great Office of educational and instructional support. So you know, we were able to connect with them and be able to use Poll Everywhere and case based learning to engage students During even large group sessions, one of our one of our residents even used breakout rooms during a large group session when she was delivering content on the topic of constipation, which was something that we haven't really done before in our class and using at least not using tronic technology. We were fortunate to hear from EPC during the renal theme, and one of the student members on EPC and Michael grave had provided us some feedback early on, uh, almost two months, one and a half to two months before the course started, about the students in light of the fact that we were going to be doing electronic technology to really emphasize engagement. And so I contacted all of our instructors who are delivering content, at least in the large group sessions and really made a push, and a plea for them to please, please, please develop engagement technology within the large group sessions so that about every 10 to 15 minutes, we were reaching out to the students and asking them to participate in something that required them to apply, you know, apply a skill or apply an assessment of their understanding of the content that was being taught. And, and we use those things in live sessions as well. But we were just, I think, a lot more intentional about using them now, and almost mandating that every large group sessions have engagement with fairly frequent timing, so that students felt like they were participating and we weren't losing them in the virtual world. And we were also very fortunate that our inquiry In our skills that Jen is going to talk about, and also the Wednesday resident conferences, that we were able to successfully carry those out using the technology that we had.

[Grant Burningham]
Jennifer, are you on? Okay. So you're in charge of pharmacy practice skills, which is typically, we think of something very hands on. How did your teaching practices changed during this and how have your students adapted?

[Jennifer Cocohoba]
So for this year I was responsible for respiratory skills, which was prior to shelter in place, and then took on the renal skills block, which hit right when we were required to shelter in place. I think as many people know, the skills portion is very laboratory based, very hands on. We work in very small groups, you know, typically it's 32 students at most or less, and the students really get an opportunity to be face to face with each other to practice communication skills, to practice hands on skills in delivering immunizations, or learning how to assess blood pressure on people. So certainly for the skills lab, I think the need to be socially distanced, to stay at home, really impacted the skills course because you can't virtually measure someone else's blood pressure. So there's some inherent changes that had to happen with the skills course where we just could not be in person to do some of those things.

[Jennifer Cocohoba]
That being said, I think we've had to find a lot of ways to be creative around teaching, for communications practice, for example, all those students are in pairs, and you can utilize Zoom features, like putting them into breakout rooms, so they can be one on one with each other. And you miss the interaction of a preceptor, walking around listening to what they're saying, and really monitoring what's happening in those small groups. So you know, things in terms of changing teaching, which was your original question, Grant, with these really very, very small groups that we're trying to achieve this interactive level of teaching. We've needed more preceptors to watch the student interactions, and we needed to change the sizes of groups. One of my favorite active learning activities is a think, pair, share where students pair up, share some ideas, and then we bring that back to the large group. We've just had to, I think, adapt and get really, really creative in terms of offering students the support when they want to work in small groups and really had to just delay some of the hands on skills that we want to teach our students in this curriculum.

[Grant Burningham]
So my next question is for Valerie Clinard, who is in charge of the experiential education. Valerie, you've had this huge challenge of dealing with all these students who aren't necessarily on campus and having different exposures and different PPE needs. How have you been keeping students safe through their IPPEs and their APPEs?

[Valerie Clinard]
Yeah, so I think the shelter in place actually came at as good of time as it could for an EE cycle at least. So for the P1s, we did have to put a pause on their community pharmacy experience. So they did lose about 10 weeks of that experience that we'll be making up in different and creative ways using some simulation next year. But they're set to start for the summer experience on June 15. And so we have had to work with sites, some sites aren't able to continue to take students right now, some have come back on. So there's been some adapting of schedules, and we're working with sites to supply those that request PPE for the students. Some sites are starting to inquire about testing of COVID of students within a certain time frame. So we're continuing to work with sites. Each site has a different process and policy.

[Valerie Clinard]
For the class of 2020, they were in their last APPE for the most part. And because of the timing, we were able to end their cycle because we had enough hours to meet the accreditation requirements. However, we did have to pause the class of 2021 start of their APPEs, which we then again had to wait and adjust that curriculum requirement. So the class of 2021, for both P's and T's, we changed the APPE requirement from eight APPEs to six to help adjust for the sites not being able to take students and also to keep everyone on track for graduation. So those schedules were redone. And then we started and launched successfully with our cohort about two weeks ago. So our current class of 2021 students are on their APPEs.

[Grant Burningham]
So I've got a question for the group and we'll just start with you Valerie since you were just talking. What has the feedback been like from the students? And how are they dealing with these changes?

[Valerie Clinard]
Yeah, so I think that's great. I think the feedback's been very positive for most of the students. Some have asked, you know, they do want to know how their experiences will be affected, and will they be ready for APPEs if their IPPE was affected. And so we're continuing to work with them, and they have many more opportunities for that. The APPE students, some of those experiences have moved to telehealth or even virtual offsite learning, so they're actually able to do patient care from their homes for some of the sites. So that's been a learning adjustment for everyone. But I think overall, with some adaptability, the feedback's been very, very positive and the preceptors and the students are learning in new ways.

[Grant Burningham]
Jennifer, same question, what have you been hearing from students?

[Jennifer Cocohoba]
I think the students have been very generous. I think they know, for the most part, completely understand some of the restrictions we're operating under. There's been a lot of gratitude, I think, from the students part, that they're able to even continue their education in the midst of the pandemic. So I've been really pleased and proud of our students for how resilient they've been, in a time of a lot of uncertainty. That being said, I can also tell that they're tired. I think that being online, you know, for multiple hours, even, just you know, task switching between classes and skills and patient care, requires a degree of mental focus, perhaps a degree of mental focus that's even more than required when participating in person. So, you know, again, I think they continue to be optimistic about you know, what their opportunities are going to be in the future, just kind of rolling with the punches.

[Grant Burningham]
Same question for Igor. And I'm also kind of wondering what you do to connect with students when you're just dealing with them in video, Igor.

[Igor Mitrovic]
So my impression has been, I can say some somewhat anecdotal experience, from students at the end of the renal, and in the GI's, we were actually talking to students and it seems that they have, as just as everybody said, that they've been very gracious, very much accepting of the circumstances. That is not to say that there weren't some students who have had this fall hard on their shoulders, so it's not necessarily uniform. Some students have actually experienced hardship. So what we have done, all of us as faculty, reached out to those students. I have to say, OSACA student advisors have been very, very helpful. And I have actually spent quite a lot of time with a few students one on one, essentially connecting with them through the Zoom, they know that my door to my office is always open, and there's chocolate there. There's no chocolate on the Zoom. But actually, there's always, I would say, to the degree that they can find it, a friendly face and an open heart and ears to hear them and to help them. One other thing if I can just briefly relate to Grant, I might not have answered fully your first question, and that is actually that I have been very much surprised how effective, at least to me, this kind of curricular delivery has been. Particularly lectures as well as small groups. It seems that students, neither students nor faculty have skipped a beat in this transition. And that's in large in large part due to OEIS.

[Igor Mitrovic]
But also one other thing that is been my personal sort of observation, it seems that there's more interaction in the large group sessions in lectures with students than when I was in the classroom and lecturing. And you know, I'd love to talk to students, love to ask them questions. And I think that they're responding much more readily through chat and even being open to unmute themselves and talk to me. So maybe there's this new generation that appreciates more of this kind of electronic way of communicating. So I would say actually, it's surprisingly, it's been quite interactive. I'm curious what students themselves are going to share.

[Grant Burningham]
Cathi, same question. I'm wondering what you've heard from students. And I'm also wondering what you're going to take away from this, when the smoke clears and we're all back to being in the classroom again.

[Cathi Dennehy]
You know, I personally had connections with a few students, a small handful of students who have expressed some frustration with the sheltering in place and not being able to connect on a physical level with their friends. Because it is different, to see someone, you know, in person and to have a physical connection with your pharmacy school classmates in a real life scenario, as opposed to connecting with someone where, you know, I'm interacting with you and Igor and Val and Jen and we're all, but I mean, I can't touch anybody. I can't, you know, physically see your physical presence in the same way that I would if we were standing right next to each other. And I think that has an emotional value and an emotional impact on how people feel about you know, the experience in the moment. So I know that that's had an impact on some students and I've, you know, been encouraging to them, and just ask them to please make sure that they're balancing and getting outside and allowing themselves some healthy personal time, in addition to, you know, being responsive to their schoolwork, but it is challenging. It's challenging for everyone, but I think some students have a harder time with it. And that's just a natural part of how every person is different and how we adapt.

[Cathi Dennehy]
I will say one of the things that I really have liked with this new format is office hours have changed dramatically. Reliably we have about, I don't know anywhere from probably on average, about 30 to 33 or 35 students that come to office hours weekly. And we have office hours an hour on some weeks and two hours on weeks where we have exams that week. And the faculty have been very generous about coming, our basic science faculty like Igor. And so there's times when we have four or five faculty, in addition to myself, in office hours all together with the 30, you know, 33 students or so. And we're all really able to blend and accentuate conceptual learning, because we're all adding on to the value that each individual discipline has to create a more formed picture of the concept that we're trying to relay. So I honestly believe that that's something that regardless of what happens within person or virtual, from now on, I plan to have office hours virtually because I think it really allows an abundance of students to participate and benefit. So that's something that I will take away.

[Grant Burningham]
Okay, well, thank you. Thank you guys so much for sharing with us. Now we're going to hear from some students now, Valerie and Kathy, I like how you guys both managed to hike to the same spot for this. Can you guys see each other up there? Okay, I think I'll hand it back over to Eric.

[Dean Joe Guglielmo]
I think it goes back to me.

[Grant Burningham]
I'm sorry, Joe.

[Dean Joe Guglielmo, PharmD]
So now for the second part here, we're going to switch to looking at the impact of the pandemic, on PharmD student learning and well being. And this is going to be a team presentation a little different than the one you just heard in order to the person who's going to oversee that is Cindy Watchmaker, I think you all know is Associate Dean of Student Affairs. She'll introduce the segment and the individual presenters, Cindy.

[Cindy Watchmaker]
Well, good afternoon, everyone. And Eric, I think we can start with our first slide. What you see before you are some quotes from our first year students, and we know that everything has changed. Our students are strong and adaptable individuals. But there is definitely loss in what we've experienced the past couple of weeks or months, there have been adjustments, personal changes and significant changes as learners. It's all new, and it's all different. Some things have been easy, and some things have not. Some changes have been positive, and others need some work. Start students have found new opportunities to serve. And they resoundingly appreciate the support and care of faculty of staff and the school, and they respect the resilience that they've seen all around them. But what lies underneath and what's that experience been like day today, as we'd like to as a team, talk about the student community, what we're hearing what we're learning, and what this means as we move forward and hear from some of our students who will share their stories of their life in the past several months. So we'll move to the next slide and like, I'd like to introduce Joel Gonzalez, our director of admissions to talk about our entering class, Joel.

[Joel Gonzales]
Thank you, Cindy. I think we've all been trying to find silver linings in the pandemic. And I guess for admissions a silver lining was in the timing of our cycle this year. All of our admissions officers went out by February 24, which was about three weeks before the Bay Area shelter in place went to effect. So we really had the class set before the pandemics took hold in terms of the shelter in place. Given what I know about the pharmacy admissions landscape besides UCSF, I would suspect the only other schools in the country who we're likely completely done with their admissions process were UCSD and probably the University of North Carolina. This left most programs still recruiting still accepting applications still interviewing for this year's entering class. So we were in a really good position when the pandemic started. Another silver lining is in the demographics of our entering class. 93 percent of them are located in California. 65 percent of them are products of the UC system, and nearly 80 percent were enrolled in spring classes when the shell term place started. I think these numbers are important as it shows the vast majority of our entering students have been sheltering in place. They transitioned to remote learning and are familiar with the UC systems response to their education during the pandemic. We have always built a strong online community with each entering class prior to them arriving on campus and this year was no different. Realizing how important these town halls are, I've invited them to participate along with the Friday afternoon COVID-19 town halls and so the feedback I've received indicated these have been really valuable for them and very interesting. As you can imagine, there are a lot of questions coming in from entering students. To that end, we are hosting a town hall specifically with the entering class and our school leadership to really focus in and address their concerns as we move closer to their July start date. And a lot of those questions focus around you know, how much in person versus remote learning is going to happen because I think that affects their housing situations and need to be in the Bay Area. Finally, while my focus has been on the entering class, we're slowly turning the page to begin focusing on outreach and recruitment for debt the class of 2024 we've always prided ourselves on being a very high touch program. We attend events in person we meet students in person, we create connections in person We really develop those relationships with those students that ultimately translate into applications and ultimately admitted students. So this new recruiting landscape will definitely present some challenges for us, but we'll look for the silver linings in this as well. Thank you, Cindy.

[Cindy Watchmaker]
Thank you, Joel. And we're going to turn it over next and advance the slide to Jon Rey, our student affairs coordinator that will talk about the next step for our class of 2023.

[Jon Rey]
Yes, thank you, Cindy. Hi, everyone. Again, my name is Jon Ray and I'm the student affairs coordinator for the School of Pharmacy. A portion of my responsibilities include planning for orientation and the white coat ceremony. So I'm going to take a moment to share updates around these to these upcoming programs with you now. Our orientation is split into two parts, an online orientation throughout summer and then normally in person orientation the week before classes begin. This year's online orientation will begin on June 22, and last through July 19th. During this period, students will complete weekly modules with various activities designed to facilitate their success in the pharmacy program. While our online orientation will remain mostly unchanged this year, there will be an added emphasis on online interactions between members of the entering cohort so that they can continue to build connections with one another as early as possible. Following University recommendations outlined for educational activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, are normally in person orientation will be remote via Zoom from July 21 to July 24. At times, it might look a little like what you see here. Despite this limitation, we are committed to offering a strong program that further prepare students for the PharmD program and helps them build community in real time. We plan to leverage the breakout room feature of zoom to ensure small group connections mirroring what otherwise would have had been done in person. The orientation counselors, a group of volunteers from the rising P2 class, have some great ideas and are very excited to welcome mentoring students. You can advance the slide now. Thank you. As a placeholder to the class of 2023 white coat ceremony, we will hold an online white coat celebration the evening of August 28. More details will be forthcoming and shared with the incoming class leading up to this seat. However, I can share that we are planning for a more formal white coat ceremony in person for the class of 2023, likely just before they begin their advanced Pharmacy Practice experiences and the summer of 2022. Those are all my updates. So I'll turn it back over to Cindy. Thank you.

[Cindy Watchmaker]
Thank you, Jon. And we'll move forward next, and talk a little bit about the student initiated wellness activities that have been created by students. And I'd like to ask Nikki to join us who's going to tell us a little bit of her story over the past couple of months. And then about some of the wellness activities our students have created. Nikki.

[Nikki Nobahar]
Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me. So I am a P1 student, and I'm part of the wellness committee, as Cindy has mentioned. So just a little bit about my personal experience over the past couple months, I've been pretty fortunate to be spending these past couple months at home with my family. And I'm extremely grateful for that and just having their support and their presence. But of course, it's still been a challenge. And I think the most difficult thing for me has been that I've been feeling pretty disconnected from my career goals, just being so physically distanced from school, and any sort of patient interaction. And it's something that I'm trying to improve how I'm approaching my learning experience, because this is something that we're going to be dealing with for some time, and of course, I'm continuing to adapt to it like others are. But one of the things that has really helped me feel connected and kept me grounded has been the ongoing wellness activities and initiatives. And these have either been led by students themselves and that we have supported as the wellness committee, or ones that the longest committee has initiated. So a little bit about the wellness committee essentially consists of two representatives from each of the classes with guidance and support from Jon Rey and OSACA (Office of Student and Curricular Affairs). And we come together to discuss wellbeing across the classes, and try to find what resources and programs we can provide to support our students. So at the beginning of the quarantine, some students came together and started a buddy system, a quarantine buddy system where they paired classmates up with one another based on their interests and experiences. And then another group of students who took the resiliency elective came together and started reaching out to other members of our class kind of imparting the resiliency practice and making sure that everybody had a point of contact as possible. As the wellness committee we have provided support and try to expand this to the other classes as well, because these are both initiated by the Class of 2022. As you can see, our students have really become united during the time of the pandemic. And it's really been inspiring to me personally, as well as others that to feel the support from our students and of course faculty as well. But some events that we have put on as the wellness committee has been a virtual talent show, and a series of virtual game nights, including bingo and Family Feud and trivia. There's a little photo of the Family Feud up there. And so these were a great hit. We had really great student engagement and I think that students like them. We also began compiling a list of resources online. We call it a wellness encyclopedia and this is ongoing and students can add to it as well. In terms of some future plans, with all the uncertainty, we're still looking forward to recruiting two representatives from the incoming class of 2023, early on in the school year, so that we can start addressing their needs, as well as the rest of the schools. And we hope to continue similar events, once the new reps are on board to and thank you. That's it from me.

[Cindy Watchmaker]
Nikki, thank you. And next slide, please. And it's my pleasure to ask Richard Ishimaru, the president of the Associated Students of the School of Pharmacy to talk a little bit about campus life and organizations. And Richard's also going to share his story.

[Richard Ishimaru]
Thank you very much, Cindy. As Cindy said, my name is Richard Ishimaru, and I'm in the same class as Nikki and I'm the ASP president for this upcoming academic school year. Before I share some information about ASP and RCOs, I'd like to like he said, kind of just give my experiences Through the changes that we've all seen, well, I've spent this last quarter living alone in the city, which has been lonely. But a big change for me has been that prior to the quarantine, I spent little to no time studying at home, I would study in the library in the rooms out at coffee shops, and almost always study with others. When the shelter in place was initiated, and with our switch to the remote curriculum, my study habits that were effective, disappeared and I was left to try to cobble together something that worked. It's been really hard, it was hard, it's continuing to be hard. And I found that it's difficult to stay focused and stay motivated when as a social person. I really feel that I grow a lot from being able to interact with others. We have had interactions via Zoom with our small groups and everything and those have been great But sometimes I'm left with a fleeting sense of connection, because with the click of a button, I'm still just alone in my apartment. I've had individual support, and I'm extremely grateful for them. I don't think that I would have made it to the quarter without them. But it's been a very challenging time and it will continue to be a challenge. It's taken a lot of self reflection and self assessment, but I'm continuing to try to build and add to what works. And speaking of continuing ASP, which is the student government for the school pharmacy, and the RCO, the registered camp organization, are continuing to move as well. We're off to a slow start in the beginning with our first events not occurring until April. But in addition to the sweeping pandemic, the adjustment to ... any adjustment to the curriculum. This spring quarter is when all of the RCOs and ASP transition their boards to the newly elected members. Well, everybody was dealing with drastically changing lifestyles, we were also trying to adopt our new roles, and at the same time trying to come up with new ways to support students. Given that the old way, which was hosting in-person meetings and events was no longer an option. At the beginning of the quarter, ASP and the RCO leaders voted to refund the spring quarter $15 student fee back to the students. Now this refund is still in the approval process. But it will be a credit to the current students' accounts and it will be an actual refund for the P4s that have graduated. Discussing the refunding of the fee is going to be something we address again in the fall. But in the meantime, we're trying to think of new ways that we can utilize the fund to support the students and the RCOs. With regards to RCOs some of them were able to make the transition to online questions. On this slide. The top left and the bottom right are just two examples of flyers from many events that the RCOs were able to hold at which they were able to bring speakers and information directly to the students. However, while all the RCOs are doing the best they can to adapt to the new environment. We do have some organizations that are very community based like Kota, who is still looking for opportunities. In fact, if anybody knows opportunities or initiatives, we would love to connect people. Um, overall though, we are continuing to move forward. And we're not letting that stop us. Planning for the RCO fair is well underway and I'm really excited for the for what we have in the works. And we have finalized or we're in the process of finalizing the P1 committee timeline. Overall, as a whole ASPs and the RCOs are working together to shift, plan for the future, and continue to push forward. And just as a last plug, the top right picture here of this slide. From left to right, we have Ryan Thaliffdeen, Dat Le, Jimmy Nguyen, and Monica Vuong, they are all the class of 2021P. And during the quarantine, they took first place in AMCP's national P&T competition. So I feel that they are proof that in the quarantine, through isolation and separation, UCSF students are staying at the top. And that's all I have Cindy, back to you.

[Cindy Watchmaker]
Thank you, Richard. And that was a wonderful way to celebrate that achievement. Next slide. And we're going to move to our advisors, Darlene Mergillano and Julie Reed to talk a little bit about what they're hearing and seeing from students. Darlene and Julie.

[Darlene Mergillano]
Thank you, Cindy. So in terms of the delivery of advising services, students are still scheduling through our appointment booking website Calendly as they have been throughout the year, and just in light of current times, appointments are just now held via Zoom.

[Julie Reed]
In addition to that kind of advising, there's other spaces where students can process remote learning and sheltering in place. We've offered to help leftists in which their experiences have been relevant throughout and critical reflection has shifted from the original topic to one in which they can discuss their experiences with the pandemic in small groups and that will happen next.

[Darlene Mergillano]
In regards to mental health services, let's talk as a service that's offered weekly to students in collaboration with the Student Health and Counseling Services liaison Justin Gibson and Justin, let us know that he averages about two to three students per week since the services have gone remote.

[Julie Reed]
The photo in the upper right there is the campus life student food market, we've heard that that's been a huge resource to our students weekly or bi-weekly. And this photo actually shows some of our students who are working in the food market. Next slide, please. This gives you a sense of the kinds of issues that we hear in advising, many of which you've heard from the students already it's not inclusive, but it'll give you a sense, beginning with the environment as you've heard, some have stayed living here independently. Others have returned to live with family. Some will say that's exactly the way It should be for them. Others feel isolated, or stressed and distracted with family.

[Darlene Mergillano]
In regards to housing, we've heard questions and concerns regarding whether students should renew their lease and some students have informed us that they plan to renew their lease and stay in SF or in campus housing while other students have moved.

[Julie Reed]
Some students have wanted to get involved with COVID-19 relief as volunteers while others have really questioned whether that was the right thing to do if they're living with vulnerable family members. Some have returned to work or started internships, although that return was delayed. And then there are those who are not doing those things and really questioning whether they should be feeling some worry and guilt around that.

[Darlene Mergillano]
And with remote learning, students have mentioned that they that they learn well remotely while other students have mentioned that it's been a struggle for them to stay motivated or have struggled to focus based on distractions. And in terms of IPPEs, some students have expressed relief that community IPPEs were done for the year but also worried that they wouldn't be as prepared moving forward, while other students felt disappointed that they ended earlier than they expected and regret not being able to have as much closure.

[Julie Reed]
And as Val mentioned, APPE rotations decrease. So we worked with students in terms of the impact on their credit load and correspondingly their financial aid. Some of the students have also worried about the order of their rotations as they think forward to their postgraduate applications. But again, as Val mentioned, they are some are working remotely now that they're in their APPEs. Others are involved in telehealth, some are on site, but they have decreased patient loads. But across the board, they've all said that they're really grateful for this clinical experience that they're able to get now. And next we will turn to a video from one of our students who has a particularly poignant experience.

[Cornelia Lin]
Hi, everyone, I'm Cornelia, I'm a P1. I hope everyone is doing well. staying safe. I'm here to share with you my personal experience during the pandemic, which is not a positive one, and I would describe it as a rollercoaster ride. But not a fun experience. So I went home for spring break and stayed there for the whole, you renal block during my stay. My mom who's a stage four metastatic breast cancer patient got hospitalized. I was very worried the whole time that she would get COVID-19 while she was hospitalized. And also I was just worried that her symptoms and signs that showed very serious heart problems would limit her treatment options in the future. And I was totally not ready for that. But thankfully, I got a lot of support from so many of you, my friends who——my small group session, peers, support group walk besides me, and Julie. I know that my shelter employee story is not an inspiring one. But something that I learned from this is that you can always find order in chaos, love and hope in despair. If you are dealing with special circumstances, make sure you reach out to people. Everyone here is super supportive. Thank you all for listening. And I hope you and your families can stay well and stay safe. I love you Class of 2022.

[Julie Reed]
You can see from that why, Darlene and I think that advising these students is an honor and a privilege. I'll just add that in recent weeks Cornelia face the difficult decision to leave her mother side and moved back to San Francisco for her internship and our Albert Schweitzer fellowship at the Chinese Hospital. She describes it as a rewarding and eye-opening experience to participate in telehealth with elderly patients as well as with family members of COVID-19 patients. Now we're going to hear from Sara Strome about her unique experiences.

[Sara Strome]
Hi, everyone. So the night before my family was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco for my spring break, my dad called and asked me to fly back to Pennsylvania instead, because it looked like my grandpa was nearing the end of his battle with COPD. We were fortunate enough to hold a funeral the week before everything shut down due to COVID-19. However, shortly thereafter, my younger brother tested positive for the virus. Luckily, he experienced relatively mild symptoms. Given my husband and I were exposed to someone with the virus, and classes had been moved to an online platform. We made the decision to stay on the East Coast. to self quarantine for at least two weeks. But as weeks passed and shelter in place orders extended, so did our time in Pennsylvania. This trip home was far from ordinary. In addition to figuring out how to adapt to online learning, I was also having trouble saying no to my parents when they wanted to spend quality time with me throughout the term. I still don't think I've perfected my remote learning routine by any means. I feel like I was putting in twice the work for the same results. I tried many different learning techniques, and even took walks while listening to lecture to try to help me to focus. I am the type of student who enjoys going to class and interacting with my professors and classmates. And I really missed that. I'm also sad that I lost time to pursue an inpatient internship this spring, but luckily, an opportunity arose for me to work alongside Julie and the resiliency team to transform the one day elective into a weekly elective. This is involvement helped me stay grounded and allowed me to direct my energy towards an activity that could help others during this challenging period. As of now, I'm booked on a flight back to San Francisco at the end of June for my hospital at the beginning in mid July. Although I'm sad to leave my parents, I'm looking forward to re-establishing some form of normalcy and routine, as well as do my best to add value where I can to the medical community during this (unintelligible). Back to you, Cindy, thank you.

[Cindy Watchmaker]
Thank you, to all of our students for these incredible stories. We appreciate your willingness to share some quotes from our students with the next slide, Eric. These are for some P1 talking about having a hard time and missing interactions with classmates and professors professors "concerned that learning online remotely may be too passive puts me at risk." A student saying, "I'm feeling pretty sad and it feels like I won't really get the full UCSF experience." And another student commenting, "I've struggled between finding motivation for class, and keeping up with the news to understand what is happening in the world." Next slide. And this is balanced by other perspectives. "I'm grateful to be living through this health crisis, especially as a budding healthcare professional," and another student comments, "it's made me realize how important a role healthcare providers play in these situations, and it makes me really proud to be in a field that can change lives during times of crisis." Next slide. And the reality is that all of these perspectives are true, and that we face a change student community and a change student experience. The students have given terrific accolades for all the adjustments that the school has made, but they are concerned about their motivation and their ability to learn and getting the experience they need and they want. The uncertainty of this time and life in general, being alone, and dealing with other kinds of stresses affects student well being and how they navigate navigate a very rigorous education. Our students are professionals in our field with a desire to make a difference. And they are so concerned about doing that in the right way. We'll need to continue having very honest discussions about these issues as we move forward. And I think responding will be a partnership. But I do think that if there's a community of students, faculty and staff, who are up to this challenge, it is ours. I want to thank our team for presenting and I'll turn it back over to you, Eric, and Grant.

[Grant Burningham]
Okay, looks like we're almost out of time for the hour. I'm just gonna combine a couple student questions here. I think maybe we can just fit one big question. And so here goes this is for Joe. When are students is going to go back to class daily. For the incoming P1s, how often are they going to be meeting in person in the first block? And finally, what is planned for the new class starting this summer?

[Dean Joe Guglielmo, PharmD]
Ah, so let's see, when will we be going back to students coming to class every day? I guess the answer to that is probably not for many, many months will we experience that in the future. You know, and a lot of it remember learn a little bit of a difficult situation here because, as I alluded to earlier, we do have a surge taking place in the Bay Area and how big that search takes place could alter a lot of the shelter in place and accordingly, other decisions that are made as relates to that. And so as it relates to the incoming class, the what we're going to do our best is we're going to stick with what we have to do. According to the mayor, and the governor in terms of what we can do, it will also go under the jurisdiction of the chancellor and his team as to what we are allowed to do and like how many students were when and how. However, as I think a number of you know, as long as we are safe, we are going to pilot what we can to really make sure that we understand and improve this social connectivity piece that really has been highlighted most recently. So I guess what I should have really said is I don't have the answer to those questions. But we fully appreciate with an eye on health as well as this social side. We're going to do everything we can to move this forward. So we probably should stop at that point. And so I'm going to close now Grant I think we're a little overtime even and, and I guess I want to first thank everybody for their incredibly valuable, very poignant, and thoughtful input. And I appreciate I particularly appreciated the input from all the students, really thoughtful, wonderful comments, and I appreciate their participation. In terms of future town halls, you can calendar The next one is going to take place Thursday, June 25. We're going to go to monthly town halls, it will be at 3pm. The outlook invitation will soon be sent. You can expect after the June one, we will have another one in July that's scheduled for July 30. And again, you expect those in the very near future. I know I have some other questions, some of which I will answer offline by email. In the meantime, again, as always, stay safe be well I really truly look forward to seeing each of you in person. So thank you all and talk to you soon.