VA campus programs adapt to online curriculum: College of pharmacy

ETSU’s Veterans Administration campus houses the James H. Quillen College of Medicine, the Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy and ETSU’s Department of Physical Therapy. Students and faculty from each program have had to adapt to a new online curriculum with ETSU’s switch to all online classes for the remainder of the 2020 spring and summer semesters. This is the first of a three-part series on the VA campus programs. Part two may be found here.

For first year pharmacy student Mikaela Rhodes, the transition to online classes during the COVID-19 outbreak has been an adjustment, but it comforts her to know that all her classmates are going through the same thing.

“I feel like anytime that you are changing your platform of learning it’s going to take a little bit of adjustment,” Rhodes said. “So, I feel like that’s what it’s mostly been for me is kind of adjusting to that new kind of – I guess – platform that we’re learning on and kind of acknowledging that the faculty are going through the same thing. It’s not just us that are having to deal with this.”

Adam Welch, Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy associate dean for assessment and academic affairs, said they are trying to fulfill the learning objectives of the courses through a combination of synchronous – scheduled meeting times through Zoom – and asynchronous – prerecorded content students watch on their own time – online teaching and learning strategies. To provide flexibility, Welch said they are allowing faculty to choose what the best combination is for their courses.

Most of Rhodes’ classes have been asynchronous in the form of video links and recordings. She said this ease of accessibility has been helpful. Professors have been holding Zoom office hours, which Rhodes called “insanely helpful” in navigating online coursework and scheduling.

Rhodes and other first years are taking a compounding lab course this semester, but she said it hasn’t been too affected by the transition.

“We were lucky in the fact that we got a lot of our hands-on stuff done before all of this happened,” Rhodes said. “And so the remainder of the labs have been converted into a virtual lab, and so our faculty has worked really hard in trying to put that together because I know that probably wasn’t an easy task.”

One of Rhodes’s labs involved a two-day Zoom lab, in which students read, watched videos and had an assignment due that day. The second day included a Zoom lecture, where the professor went through a PowerPoint and took questions before students completed a second assignment. For another lab, her professors took photos of microscope slides for a PowerPoint, so she could complete the assignments like she would have if she was in the classroom. 

According to Welch, the biggest change was to the curriculum for fourth-year students, which is entirely experiential. Students spend a calendar month, called a “rotation,” at various pharmacies and hospitals in the region. Welch said several fourth-year pharmacy students were able to continue their rotations after classes moved online.

For students who cannot continue or complete their rotations, Welch said they are following guidance from the Accreditation Counsel for Pharmacy Education to provide alternative, supervised practice experiences that meet the required objectives. Third year students become fourth year students in May, and they are currently rearranging May and June experiences to accommodate for restrictions placed by practice sites. These will include research and elective opportunities with college faculty.

Welch said the technological aspect of the transition has not been an issue because there is so much technology available that students are almost over-connected. Maintaining the same atmosphere students experienced on campus, however, is more difficult.

“We have so many ways to get a hold of students virtually,” Welch said. “So, that’s not the problem. The problem is it is sort of the classroom dynamics and the family culture that we need to maintain in a remote setting.”

For the most part, all pharmacy students take the same classes, Welch said. All their classes are in one of two buildings, and students sit in the same classroom with the same classmates for every course. With everyone close and connected, students have built relationships and a family culture within the college.

“If you’re virtually teaching and delivering the curriculum, you kind of lose a little bit of that togetherness,” Welch said. “So, I think one of the challenges we’re looking at now, is more from maintaining a culture and maintaining a wellness factor of our students when they’re not all in the same building, and trying to keep them together even though they’re virtually together.”

Rhodes’ class has been communicating often through a group message. She said several group projects are continuing virtually, and Zoom meetings have allowed them to see familiar faces.  

“I think that they’re definitely doing their best at helping us preserve that community aspect,” Rhodes said. “You know, in the college of pharmacy, we always say we’re family, and that’s one thing that I feel like I haven’t lost through this even though I’m so many hours away, and I’m not in Johnson City anymore.”

Rhodes also said faculty have reached out through email and during Zoom lectures to let their students know they miss them, making them feel loved from miles away.

Something Welch hopes the pharmacy students learn from this experience is adaptability.

“I’m hoping that the pharmacy students can be adaptable,” Welch said. “Adaptability is something I think is a skill that will be polished by this whole process and everything that we’re going through. You know, grit is probably another thing that will be enhanced while going through this. I think it also is true for faculty and staff with the college as well.”

Rhodes echoed this, acknowledging that during this outbreak, they are having to adapt to circumstances they have not seen before. She said she thinks this experience will go a long way in their education because when circumstances change, they’ll be ready to adapt.

“I definitely think that – you know – it’s definitely giving us something out of a bad situation because we’re going to be able to adapt to things in practice,” Rhodes said. “Thinking quickly on your feet just because of the things that you’re having to do here, so I definitely think that we’re getting something out of it even thought they’re really unfortunate circumstances.”