In all kinds of weather
Students, faculty and staff fight effects of pandemic and help their community
In true Gator fashion, students, faculty and staff showed up in force to fight the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic together and to help their community with everything from coronavirus testing and child care to donating supplies and spreading cheer.
It takes a village
When UF College of Medicine students paused their clinical rotations amid COVID-19 concerns, many volunteered to serve more vulnerable members of the population by helping with screenings in The Villages®, a Central Florida retirement community that is home to 130,000 residents. In March, 120 medical and physician assistant students were trained in the appropriate use of personal protective equipment and deployed to assist the health care professionals administering tests. Michael Lauzardo, MD ’91, deputy director of the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute and an associate professor in the division of infectious diseases and global medicine, oversaw the project.
Grant Harrell, MD ’10, leads COVID-19 testing efforts at GRACE Marketplace.
Photo by Louis Brems
Caring for the community
A team of UF College of Medicine students, faculty and staff are working to help protect one of Gainesville’s most underserved and medically vulnerable communities from COVID-19. Led by Grant Harrell, MD ’10, the UF Mobile Outreach Clinic’s medical director and an assistant professor in the department of community health and family medicine, the team spent three days conducting screening and testing for 145 individuals at GRACE Marketplace, which provides shelter, services and permanent housing solutions for Gainesville’s homeless population.
Connecting the dots
PhD students in the department of epidemiology at UF Health are among a group of 30 UF faculty and students who answered the call when Florida needed to drastically boost the number of epidemiologists working with health departments around the state. Their work entails contact tracing and identifying patterns that could help explain how the disease is spreading. The students, who continue to juggle their normal course loads with their new volunteer responsibilities, have been deployed throughout the state, from Broward County to Osceola County.
Gators helping Gators
Researchers spanning UF and UF Health’s many scientific disciplines donated personal protective equipment by the pallet and truckload to build upon existing stockpiles in support of clinical colleagues treating COVID-19 patients. Laboratory teams gathered masks, face shields, gloves, gowns, disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizer and more to help ensure that UF’s health care professionals have the equipment they need to stay safe and provide the best possible care to patients in the face of global shortages of protective gear.
Researchers from across UF gathered and donated personal protective equipment such as face masks and hand sanitizer to help colleagues working on the front lines of the pandemic.
Together while apart
In the midst of the pandemic, UF medical students joined colleagues with expertise in business and media to design an app to bring people together — virtually. The 6ftCloser app, which launched April 11 with the help of first-year medical students Jesse Caron, Samantha Korn, Emily Loe and Kathryn Thompson, asks users practicing social distancing at home to record short thank-you videos that are shared with those working on the front lines of the pandemic. Five days after the launch, 500 videos were shared with essential workers nationwide, from doctors and nurses to administrative personnel and kitchen staff.
Home work
In appreciation for hospital staff working tirelessly to care for patients, UF College of Medicine students stepped up to help by establishing Gator Sitters, an initiative that pairs volunteers with UF Health staff who need assistance with child care, pet care and other household duties like meal preparation and grocery shopping. Emily Edwards and Christine Rodhouse, medical students from the class of 2021, organized the venture and are working with a team of fellow medical students, physician assistant students and students from other UF graduate programs.
Medical students Christine Rodhouse and Emily Edwards established Gator Sitters to help provide child care, pet care and more for UF Health staff working on the front lines of the pandemic. This image was taken prior to national guidelines regarding face coverings and social distancing.
Photo by Jesse S. Jones
Tackling community needs
Students from across UF Health have teamed up to assess and meet the needs of Gainesville’s residents through the creation of the UF chapter of the COVID-19 Student Service Corps. Designed by students and faculty at Columbia University, the corps aims to support health systems, patients, the workforce and communities facing the pandemic by facilitating interprofessional student service-learning projects. UF’s chapter is involved in 33 ongoing projects that encompass areas such as public health, COVID-19 testing and gratitude projects like 6ftCloser. Kim Dunleavy, PhD, an associate clinical professor of physical therapy, and Grant Harrell, MD ’10, were instrumental in helping students launch the project.
A group of neuromedicine employees stayed after-hours to flex their artistic muscles while showing appreciation for health care providers. At the end of their shifts, hospital staff leaving the UF Health Heart & Vascular and Neuromedicine hospitals were greeted with sidewalk chalk art that shared messages such as “You matter!” and “Thank you!”
Photo courtesy of Elise Martin
A sweet surprise
Patricia Sacks was searching for a way to spread cheer to health care workers on the front lines at UF Health and found the answer in her kitchen. An avid home baker, the third-year medical student recruited 20 of her fellow medical students to bake treats for health professionals in the hospital. The project, called Cookies to the Frontlines, has thus far resulted in the delivery of over 500 cookies — red velvet, s’mores, oatmeal scotchies and more — to hardworking staff, including doctors, nurses and paramedics.
Medical student Patricia Sacks, founder of One Tough Cookie — a nonprofit baking business that raises funds for Stop Children's Cancer — started the Cookies to the Frontlines initiative to spread cheer to staff working around the clock during the pandemic.
Photo by Jesse S. Jones
