Chapman University administration decided last month to hold in-person labs and evaluations for students in the School of Pharmacy and the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. During this fall semester at the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus, students will be provided important training and examinations to become capable health care workers.

“Ensuring the competence of people that go out and have people’s lives in their hands is what we have to do, and there are certain things that the accreditor requires us to do … that we just can’t do online,” said Ron Jordan, the dean of the School of Pharmacy.

In-person programs will include objective-structured clinical exams, laboratories and integrated exams, while all other classes, programs and evaluations will take place online. Objective-structured clinical examinations will measure a clinician’s knowledge and skill performance in a real-world approach to learning and assessment. For pharmaceutical students, these examinations test the students’ performance, reaction and communication when working with actors playing the roles of patients.

In addition to the School of Pharmacy, Crean students in physician assistant training and physical therapy training require in-person coursework to receive their license and complete their education.

“Our didactic classes are all online,” Jordan said. “We are bringing (Crean and Pharmacy) students on campus for things they cannot complete online.”

Students from the School of Pharmacy and Crean College have designated days during the week to attend activities or exams on the Rinker campus, according to Jordan. To improve social distancing while simultaneously taking advantage of the in-person environment, Crean students have access to the campus’ facilities and classrooms for the first half of the week, and pharmaceutical students have that same access during the latter half of the week.

“I teach an immunization course, which will require students to come to campus to practice giving shots,” said Jeff Goad, the chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. “We were successful in running a sterile preparation lab last month on campus, so I’m confident we’ll be able to do it again in a safe and educationally sound manner.  The faculty and students have been very receptive and appreciative of the safeguards we’ve put in place, which would be expected of health professional students.”

Melanie Tran, a second-year School of Pharmacy student, recently participated in a required, on-campus sterile compounding lab. Despite any nerves she might have felt, she expressed a strong sense of comfort due to the safety measures in place to protect students. 

“Everyone was very professional and all the precautions were (taken) correctly,” Tran said. “It was really great to see everyone, but I felt so weird. I was running into people in the parking lot and I was trying to guess who was who with their masks on. It was a weird, bittersweet reunion after being online for five months.”

At the Rinker campus, safety precautions and personal protective equipment requirements are strictly enforced. Everyone on campus is required to wear both a face covering and a face shield in addition to social distancing.

There are also entrance procedures for the buildings on the Rinker campus. Assigned entrances and exits keep the Pharmacy and Crean College students separate, and each school monitors and schedules student entry. Barcodes, used when entering and exciting buildings, ensure proper contact tracing to rapidly limit the spread of the coronavirus in the case of a breakout. In addition, all students must present a “CLEAR” email from a Chapman daily screening questionnaire for the coronavirus, which asks students if they’ve displayed any COVID-19 symptoms in the past 24 hours.

“We have pivoted before to all online and we can pivot again if needed,” Jordan said. “I’m optimistic that by the end of the year there will be a vaccine and therapies to treat (the coronavirus), but if there was an outbreak, we would ultimately do the right thing … and pivot back to online learning.” 

A petition from the School of Pharmacy’s class of 2022 argues for the option to opt out of in-person testing, due to concerns regarding student comfort and safety. However, while some students express concerns regarding on-campus learning, Tran emphasized the importance of training the future’s health care workers.

“We signed up to be health care providers,” Tran said. “We signed up to help people and our community. We took a pledge before we went to pharmacy school saying we are here to help others. It’s just one of the risks we have to take.”