Skip to content

College of Medicine ramp-up roundup: Updates regarding on-campus work for the week ending Aug. 7

Dr. Leslie Parent, Dr. Terry Wolpaw, Dr. Charles Lang and Dr. Neal Thomas sent the following message to College of Medicine faculty, staff and students on Aug. 7.

Important Notice

If you think you have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 or have symptoms yourself, please do not come on campus. Instead, follow this protocol:

  • Medical, physician assistant and graduate students: Call Student Health at 717-531-5998
    • Student Health will provide screening and schedule a COVID screening test as needed with a short turnaround time. While awaiting results, please alert any roommates and other close contacts.
  • Postdoctoral fellows and other employees: Call Employee Health at 717-531-8280

Note: It is the responsibility of laboratory supervisors to inform the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in a timely manner of any suspected COVID exposures in their lab. Failure to do so will be viewed as a serious violation of biosafety protocols and may result in closure of the lab.

Research Update

Research: Thank you all for your continued compliance with the policies we have in place. We will maintain our capacity level of 50% until further notice. We continue to monitor the number of cases in our county and at our facilities. If you are interested in the number of COVID cases within our facility, see the Penn State Health dashboard, which is updated weekly.

Laboratory staff, postdoctoral fellows and students who are COVID-positive: To assure transparency in reporting and facilitate contact tracing, lab supervisors should report suspected or documented cases of COVID infection in the research group to Dr. Chuck Lang (chl1@psu.edu) and Ray Scheetz (BioSafetyOfficer@pennstatehealth.psu.edu). Confidentially of health information will be maintained. Lab supervisors should report any postdoctoral fellow with COVID symptoms or positive test results to Dr. Gail Thomas (gthomas4@pennstatehealth.psu.edu).

Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training modules on COVID-19 available: The College now has access to three CITI modules on COVID-19 (Introduction, Prevention Strategies and Moving Forward) that can be found at about.citiprogram.org/en/homepage. These modules are available to all faculty, staff and students and will take about 1.5 hours to complete. For graduate students, successful completion of these modules is a requirement prior to orientation. Your certificates can be uploaded to Canvas.

Safety precautions in labs: Finally, a reminder to guard against complacency in maintaining safety precautions in lab. It is critical for everyone in lab to wear a type 1 procedure mask (no cloth masks) and maintain at least 6 feet of physical distance between workers. This keeps everyone safe and will minimize viral spread if someone in the lab becomes infected. Even if you are the only person in lab, please wear a mask to prevent possible contamination. Failure of individuals or groups to not follow safety guidance may have their lab activities reduced preemptively for noncompliance.

Comparative Medicine and Animal Resources Program: We appreciate research staff utilizing the Outlook calendars to schedule their work in the animal facilities. At this time, we are approving and processing animal orders to complete existing work, resume work that was stopped during the reduction, and imports and exports that were put on hold. Orders for starting new projects involving animals will continue to be prioritized during phase 3 with priority given to time-sensitive work. Those seeking approval for animal orders should contact Dr. Ron Wilson (rwilson2@pennstatehealth.psu.edu).

Education Update

Back-to-campus testing: Some may have listened to President Barron’s last town hall meeting during which it was indicated the University has implemented a mandatory COVID-19 pre-arrival testing program to test individuals from locations with a high prevalence of the disease before they arrive on campus. At this time, faculty, staff and students from the College of Medicine will not be included in this program for the fall semester. This pre-arrival testing was not considered necessary as all COM students are quarantined prior to entering campus buildings.

As a reminder, any student who is concerned that they might have COVID-19 symptoms should call Student Health. After talking with the student, if Student Health determines that COVID-19 testing is needed, Student Health will order the test and further advise the student about what to do while waiting for the test results. Finally, the College will be part of a program that will conduct surveillance testing of faculty, staff and students throughout the semester, testing about 1% of our campus populations per day. The plan includes random and risk-stratified surveillance testing as well as testing for individuals who are identified in the contact-tracing process.

We reiterate that if you are feeling ill and have the COVID symptoms, you should stay home and not come to work or class. Students should call Student Health. Employees and postdoctoral fellows should call Employee Health.

Medical education: All four classes of medical students are now back in Hershey and fully involved in hybrid classes and clinical rotations. This week the first-year students began Scientific Principles of Medicine, their first foundational science course. They also began Foundations of Patient-Centered Care, their longitudinal clinical medicine course. Socially distanced and wearing a mask, shield, stethoscope and white coat, they interviewed a standardized patient who zoomed into their small group on a large plasma screen. Second-year MD students are in their gastrointestinal medicine, health systems science and humanities courses, learning remotely until next Wednesday. They will then begin in-person anatomy dissection sessions, adhering to all carefully planned safety measures.

Physician assistant (PA) program: Our first-year PA students continue a hybrid learning model that incorporates in-person coursework with continued online learning for the remainder of the summer semester. Second-year PA students also continued their in-person clinical experiences and recently began their next four-week clinical rotations.

Undergraduates on campus: We continue to increase our on-campus research presence, and more students are returning to campus. However, given the limited capacity within our facilities, the need to maintain physical distancing and the updates we’ve included in our lab standard operating procedures, undergraduate and high school students are currently not permitted to have an on-campus research experience. We must prioritize our resources and capacity for our graduate and medical students’ research endeavors. This situation is not expected to change until after Labor Day, at the earliest. After that date, we will reassess these types of research opportunities on a case-by-case basis. Remote internships are encouraged throughout the summer months.

Masks in the classroom: Based on recommendations from our Infection Prevention team of experts, all students attending in-person instruction will be required to properly wear a loop or type 1 procedure mask to limit viral spread. Cloth masks are no longer recommended for in-person instruction. Loop masks will be distributed to graduate students during Orientation and Welcome Week activities.

Flu Shots: In the coming weeks, you will receive emails about free flu shots being offered to faculty, staff and students. Unless there is an overriding medical reason, we strongly recommend that ALL students be vaccinated against the flu in September. Doing so will help prevent our COVID testing capabilities from being overwhelmed by those with flu symptoms.

Additional News and Information

Reminder: University Fitness Center move to next phase of capacity Aug. 17
Starting Aug. 17, the University Fitness Center (UFC) will move to the next level in capacity by allowing spouses and family members to also use the facilities. Hershey campus employees and their family members as well as students are eligible to return during UFC Phase 2. Please note the following guidance in this next phase:

  • Direct pay memberships will be adjusted to account for the period of time the UFC was closed.
  • Biweekly payroll deductions will reactivate with the pay period starting Aug. 16. Monthly payroll deductions will not restart until September.
    • Employees who wish to modify deductions may make changes at any time by visiting the fitness center during operational hours to complete an update form.
  • All employees and students should continue to utilize the on-campus screening process prior to visiting UFC. Campus ID cards are required for entry.

The center will maintain the current hours of operation, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays. Visit times are restricted to a maximum of 75 minutes. Until Aug. 17, UFC is open to Hershey campus employees and students only.

Harrell Health Sciences Library open with limited capacity

The Harrell Health Sciences Library at the College of Medicine is open to faculty, staff and students. It is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and closed on weekends until further notice. In this first phase, the library has restricted its capacity to 50% and implemented new safety precautions. See details here.

Meeting Reservations

While most meetings should continue to be held remotely, meeting locations have been updated in BookIT to reflect the reduced capacity allowed in each room to maintain social distancing. Please remember it is the meeting leader’s responsibility to ensure the room capacity does not exceed the required number.

Easy Access to Check-in Icon

If you would like to easily access the med.psu.edu/checkin location daily, follow these easy steps:

For iPhone/iPad:

  • Launch Safari and load med.psu.edu/checkin.
  • Tap the Share button, which looks like a square with an arrow rising from it. Look for it on the bottom of the screen on an iPhone; near the top on an iPad.
  • Tap “Add to Home Screen” in the Share menu.
  • Name the shortcut as desired, then tap “Add.”
  • The shortcut icon will now appear on the phone or tablet screen.

For Android:

  • Launch Chrome and load med.psu.edu/checkin.
  • Tap the menu button and choose “Add to Home Screen.
  • Name the shortcut as desired, then tap “Add.”
  • The shortcut icon now appears on the phone or tablet screen.

Are you reading the Daily Brief?

For continued updates on the College of Medicine, please read the Daily Brief that is sent each weekday via email (comes through as News in your email) and visit med.psu.edu/coronavirus as information is added daily to keep you informed.

If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email Penn State Health Marketing & Communications.

Your browser is out-of-date!

The version of the browser you're using is not supported, and some features of this website may not work properly. Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×