COVID-19 adaptations and how your university helped you excel through it
The Health Service Executive (HSE), which is the equivalent to the Ministry of Health, had indicated clinical students as frontline workers, which meant we could continue with placements regardless of the level of restrictions. What this also meant was that clinical students were given the privilege of being the first few in the country to receive COVID vaccines, too! – quoted from Fara’s document
As for clinical students at TCD,
- Fill up covid declaration form every weekday morning
- All students were split up into smaller groups referred to as pods for clinical activities and in person tutorials were still taking place in hospitals within pods and keeping in mind social distancing by using bigger classrooms/lecture theatres
- The number of students allocated to a clinical team reduced to one or two which maximized learning opportunities
- Lectures for clinical students also shifted online and were a mix of pre-recordings and live online lectures which were also recorded. This allowed for reviewing of lecture materials which greatly helped during revision.
- Tutorials were also shifted online, these allowed students to watch and participate from the comfort of their own homes. The tutorials are organised such that students are split into various groups and rotate through various tutorials as per the timetable. This allowed for similar and equal content to be taught to every student.
- Students were allowed to zoom into tutorials that were happening live in the hospital. This was great as it allowed us to catch up on tutorials that we missed previously and allows for more flexibility with time, as that is the most precious thing during final year.
- PPEs were supplied readily in all hospital sites
- As most teaching was done online, this allowed for more collaboration between students during note taking with google doc being one of the most used applications of all time during this past year.
- Last summer during the peak of COVID, most electives were cancelled. Each university has come up with a few online modules that fulfills electives requirements.