Student Updates
BUMC-IT is Hiring Graduate Students for Medical Campus Positions
Join the IT Help Center and play a key role in BU’s Learn from Anywhere (LfA) initiative. We are seeking graduate students to act as LfA classroom moderators on the Medical Campus. This role helps faculty engage with students who are participating in class remotely and assists with basic classroom technology support.
We provide an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, professional and personal growth, open doors, life-long friendships, and a sense of purpose topped off with a touch of humor.
No Experience? No Problem! The IT Help Center will provide training for these positions throughout the summer via Zoom and Blackboard. There will also be mandatory on campus training. More information will be made available during the hiring process. We can’t wait to hear from you!
If you have any questions, please email.
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: July 16
BU Enters Phase2
Earlier this week University Provost Jean Morrison and SVP for Operations Gary Nicksa announced the University is entering Phase 2 of its four-phase reopening process. New protocols, requirements and advisories for BU employees can be found in the Back to On-Campus Work Guide, Phase 2 Re-Entry, Summer 2020 edition, published on the Back2BU website.
GMS
The GMS Masters graduate program proposals for Learn from Anywhere have been approved and are posted on the GMS website and Back2BU website for graduate programs.
GSDM
Today, the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine officially opens its brand-new Simulation Learning Center (SLC), located on the third floor of 635 Albany Street. The new SLC has 117 student simulation stations and two teacher stations, but under current physical-distancing guidelines, capacity will be limited to 50 individuals. The new SLC is equipped with state-of-the-art dental and digital technology, and will greatly enhance the preclinical pre- and postdoctoral educational experience of the school’s students and residents.
7/10 GSDM Update from Dean Hutter
Click to learn more Memo from Office of the Dean
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: July 9
GSDM
The Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine resumed in-person patient care on Monday, July 6, at its Patient Treatment Centers at 635 Albany Street and 930 Commonwealth Avenue. The reopening was a true celebration, as faculty, staff, students, residents, and patients were welcomed back with festive balloons and “Welcome Back!” signage. The resumption of in-person patient care marked the first day that students and residents were seeing patients in the School’s brand new patient treatment spaces, which were completed in late February just prior to the shutdown. The Patient Treatment Centers will be operating at 30 percent capacity overall (although exact capacity will vary from department to department) in this first phase of a planned four-phase reopening. The School will be seeing patients with emergent, urgent and elective conditions, although it will be prioritizing those patients with the most urgent needs. Dean Hutter has established a GSDM COVID-19 Compliance Working Group to evaluate and provide recommendations for progression from one phase to the next phase of capacity.
BUMC social distancing occupancy numbers
This website provides occupancy numbers for 130 centrally scheduled BUMC classrooms with social distancing capacity. Kerberos authentication required.
R107
The R107 computer lab is being prepared as a BUMC COVID-19 testing center. MyPrint student printing stations remain available in the L basement near Chequers and L1102 Copy Room. Public computing for students is available in L1110. L11 is accessible weekdays from 6 a.m.-6 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. For updated information for L11 and the Alumni Medical Library, click here.
Back2BU website
The University website contains information and frequently asked questions about returning to campus, which have been broken into categories, including Employees and the Workplace, and Testing and Tracing.
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: July 1
On Monday, June 29, the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) received approval from the University to resume in-person patient care at both 635 Albany Street and 930 Commonwealth Avenue. GSDM will see its first patients on Monday, July 6. While the University’s approval allows the School to begin seeing patients immediately, it is using the remainder of this week to prepare its patient treatment centers and continue training faculty and staff on the updated process for patient check-in, elevator usage, stair usage, and walk flow through the Patient Treatment Center (including one-way and two-way corridors).
We will continue to update you as Medical Campus reopening plans are implemented. Visit the Back2BU website for the latest information from the University working groups and detailed FAQs listed by subject area.
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: June 25
As research ramps up, we continue to prepare for the safe return of on-campus learning and clinical activities, following state guidelines. We will continue to update you as plans are implemented. Visit the website for the latest information from the University working groups and detailed FAQs listed by subject area.
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: June 18
Research continues to ramp up on the Medical Campus following the Commonwealth’s guidance, IS&T has launched the Learning from Anywhere (LfA) faculty resource website and the new research MRI has been installed in the X Building basement.
Back2BU website
The University website contains information and frequently asked questions about returning to campus, which have been broken into categories, including Employees and the Workplace, and Testing and Tracing.
Day of Collective Engagement: Racism and Antiracism, Our Realities and Our Roles
On Wednesday, June 24, President Brown has requested non-essential classes, meetings and events that day be rescheduled if possible to allow members of our University community to fully participate and come together to discuss this vitally important issue. I look forward to active involvement of our faculty, staff and students as we plan and implement anti-racism initiatives on the medical campus and contribute to the national conversation.
Research
Research continues to resume on the Medical Campus following the Commonwealth’s guidance, including keeping a safe density of lab members and having available PPE and cleaning supplies. For information on the resumption of human subject research, please click here.
To protect all members of the BUMC community, please comply with the University's reopening plan which includes wearing face coverings and physical distancing while on the Medical Campus and remind your colleagues to comply.
LfA Faculty Resource website
Designed for faculty, the new Learning from Anywhere (LfA) resource website contains pedagogical guidance, tools to get started, assessment options, FAQs, training schedules and recordings. More content to come.
BUSM/GMS
Twenty-three first-year PhD candidates in the Program in Biomedical Sciences (PiBS) participated in graduate work remotely or in-laboratory SARS-CoV-2 research through the spring. They are now completing their laboratory rotations and deciding on dissertation advisors and projects.
GSDM
The Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine’s application to resume in-person clinical activities, submitted to the University’s Medical Advisory Group on June 12, is currently under review. Sessions continue at the school’s Simulation Learning Center.
MRI Imaging Center
The installation of the 3.0 Philips (Ingenia Elition X) MRI in the X Building is complete! See photos below.
New Medical Campus OUT & Ally List Helps Make Connections Among LGBTQ+ Community
Students behind the effort hope it will make navigating issues easier and be a resource for those seeking mentors.
The coronavirus pandemic caused a lot of Pride events to go virtual this month, but the BU Medical Campus LGBTQ+ community can celebrate a project designed to be online.
The new OUT & Ally list is a directory of clinicians, faculty, practitioners, researchers, staff, students, and trainees across the Medical Campus who identify as LGBTQ+ or as allies for the LGBTQ+ community. They join the list to make themselves available to LGBTQ+ students at the BU Schools of Medicine and of Public Health and the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine who are looking for mentors, guidance, and academic or nonacademic support.
The creation of the list was led by Isa Gell-Levey (MED’22) and Janet Monroe (MED’22), leaders of the BU Medical Campus Pride group for the 2019-2020 academic year. Last August they decided that they wanted more than the bare-bones Out List that had existed on the Medical Campus for years.
“I said to Janet, ‘Have you seen this Out List?’” Gell-Levey recalls. “‘It’s not great to search on, not a great representation of the full diversity of the Pride community.’ So the two of us decided to spearhead this project to revamp the list and get it updated. I’m not sure we knew exactly what we were getting into.”
They enlisted the aid of Katie Toro-Ferrari, MED director of student affairs. “I think people are hungry to connect and eager to have a place to find people and information and community,” says Toro-Ferrari. “Part of Student Affairs’ mission is to support diversity and inclusion, to make sure we are fostering a culture and community that is inclusive, so it made sense for us to have a hand in helping them.”
Eventually they talked to people in MED’s Graduate Medical Sciences, SPH, SDM, Boston Medical Center (BMC), and others, such as BU’s Office of the General Counsel.
“It was more complicated than we expected,” Monroe says in a joint Zoom interview. The two students originally hoped to post the new list through Google by Coming Out Day last October, which seems funny to them now. Getting it right was more important than any deadline, as they faced complicated questions about privacy, whether to include allies on the list, and what information they should ask each person to provide.
Major support came from the Medical Campus IT staff, who created a website with a spotlight page for LGBTQ+ campus news, search capability, and Kerberos-password access, the latter a key component in balancing privacy and usability. You can join the list with your BU Kerberos login or a BMC/BU email address. BU Medical Campus alumni and retirees with a BU email address are also welcome to join.
“Coming up with questions for the list itself was quite a challenge,” Monroe says. “We expanded the list to talk about people’s identities and the things they might be able to offer advice on.”
The main site lists each member’s name, affiliation, organization, and degree/title/specialty, as well as identifying whether they are LGBTQ+ or an ally. One click brings users to a page with more details provided by each individual member, including contact information, pronouns, sexual identity, and whether they have experience with LGBTQ+ clinical care, research, mentorship, or advocacy.
“One of the things we thought was really important was to ask: what is the utility of the list, what is it for, who will be using it?” says Gell-Levey. “We want it to be not just a resource for students, but also a network meeting place where people could find mentors, find research projects, or volunteer in certain areas.
“People applying to residencies can ask, ‘Should I be out while applying?’ ‘If you have different pronouns, how do you navigate that in residency applications and on campus?’” she says. “New faculty can come on the list and say, ‘I’m trans faculty, how do I navigate that?’ and find another trans faculty person who can help them.”
I think people are hungry to connect and eager to have a place to find people and information and community.
—Katie Toro-Ferrari, MED director of student affairs
Medical Campus community members can also use the list to build connections and network more broadly on topics from a research project to organizing a vigil or recruiting volunteers.
As of this writing, there are more than 100 names on the alphabetical list. One of the first is Karen Antman, dean of the School of Medicine and provost of the Medical Campus—and an ally who says the list is “a much-needed resource.”
“I signed up to be an ally because our LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty need to know that the school leadership supports them and that they are welcome to discuss any issues on campus,” Antman says. “Medical and graduate schools are hard. Finding your niche as a junior faculty member is hard. We can’t succeed if all of our students, staff, and faculty don’t get the recognition they deserve because of their race, sex, or whom they love.”
The project has led to plans for a similar list on the Charles River Campus. Although COVID-19 has made much uncertain right now, the effort will be gearing up by the fall, says Chantel James, Financial Assistance assistant director and chair of the Charles River Campus LGBTQIA+ Identified Faculty & Staff Network. Those who want to be involved should email LGBTQIA-FSN-BOARD@bu.edu.
It has been difficult to gauge reaction to the OUT & Ally List among students because none have been on campus since the pandemic forced the University to institute remote teaching and learning in March, Gell-Levey says, but “we are excited to see where it goes from here.”
“I think it’s more important than ever to be building connections with people in the different BU areas,” Monroe says. “I hope this is even more important than it would be otherwise, given that we are spread out all around the country.”
This BU Today story was written by Joel Brown
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: June 11
This week we began the incremental resumption of research activities on the Medical Campus. Labs are beginning to ramp up following approval of each lab’s plan to keep a safe density of lab members, to have available PPE and cleaning supplies, and to use best practices to reduce transmission of infection in careful compliance with Mass state guidelines. While lab research ramps up, guidelines are being discussed to restart human subject research. Stay tuned for that information.
Masks, Physical Distancing
As the Medical Campus works to reopen safely, we rely on all members of the BUSM community to comply with the state’s requirements for physical distancing and wearing a mask. Please wear a mask at all times while on the Medical Campus and in the hospital. We understand that wearing a mask at all times is uncomfortable, but compliance is critical. COVID-19 is a serious illness, and vigilance with physical distancing and appropriate use of PPE are critical to the safety of our patients, our colleagues and ourselves. Please remind each other to comply.
BUSM
The fourth-year MD students have re-entered the clinics and hospitals, and are enrolled in 43 different rotations and clinical electives at BMC, the VA and Roger Williams. They also are participating in new, innovative telehealth experiences in geriatrics and ambulatory medicine.
The third-year MD students began virtual clerkships at the end of May and are participating in two-week mini clerkships in each specialty. Clerkship directors created a new curriculum using case based and interactive teaching over Zoom focused on preparing students for oral presentations, documentation and clinical reasoning in the clinical environment. Approximately 20 faculty in each department have been participating in facilitating small groups in their discipline. Faculty in the Academy of Medical Educators also have been providing direct feedback to students on key clinical skills in small group sessions.
GSDM
At the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, students have returned to campus for sessions in the Simulation Learning Center at 650 Albany Street. Currently, about 200 people a day are going through the COVID-19 screening process that the school launched last week.
The school now is finalizing its application to resume in-person clinical activities. The resumption of didactic classes will be the final step in the school’s phased reopening process. GSDM will welcome incoming postdoctoral residents on July 1, and incoming predoctoral students on July 27.
HVAC systems
At the May 14 BU Management Town Meeting, Michael Donovan from Campus Planning & Operations (CPO) explained a three-step process to ensure that we are getting the most out of our many and varied HVAC systems across the University:
- Inspect the entire system and its components to ensure that it is operating as designed. This is particularly important with older systems to make sure they are operating as robustly as they possibly can. This would include inspection of motors, belts, filters, inlet and outlet dampers and automation systems where they are installed and manual controls.
- When those inspections are completed, CPO knows whether the systems are operating as designed, they will further examine each one, verify the filtration level, and whether or not the system can accommodate enhanced filtration without affecting the airflow and number of air changes as designed into the system.
- Through the use of controls, both automatic and manual, CPO will determine if the amount of outside air and the number of air changes can be increased while still maintaining the integrity of the system and the environment it serves.
Laboratories average about eight air changes an hour. As we return with 25 percent of employees, the reduced load in a space as well as the use of a mask will enhance the air quality. It could be further enhanced as airflow is able to be increased as outlined in step three above.
Back2BU website
The University has launched a website with information and frequently asked questions about returning to campus that have been broken into categories, which include Employees and the Workplace, and Testing and Tracing.
Here are some photos that show examples of the Phase One resumption of research activities.
Weekly Safe Return to BUMC Update: June 4
Our Building Coordinators, Environmental Health & Safety and Facilities teams have toured each floor of our campus buildings to verify that the required adjustments have been made in accordance with CDC, Commonwealth and University guidance to provide a safe environment for the incremental ramp-up of research activities.
Please remember to carry your BU ID with you to gain building access:
- The only entrance to the Instructional (L) building complex, which provides access to the Collamore (C), Evans (E), Housman Research (R) and Conte (K) buildings, will be through the L building lobby.
- The access on Evans Way near the Department of Medicine and the other direct entrances to the K building including both street level entrances, and Housman Research (R) building including the Harrison Avenue card access entrance will be closed.
- The CABR (W) building at 700 Albany St. loading dock, pedestrian entrances will be restricted to authorized personnel.
A critical component to the resumption of research is personal protective equipment (PPE). Sourcing and Procurement has secured a bulk order of PPE, but for those labs with an immediate need, we have PPE available through our BUMC PPE Supply Center. Please click here for more information on it.
Also this week, we welcomed some of our students back to campus! Our fourth-year medical students began their clinical rotations at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Third-year medical students began a 10-week virtual curriculum May 13 to prepare for their clinical rotations, which will begin Aug. 17. Our PhD students continue their SARS-CoV2 research on campus while other PhD students will begin to re-enter their research labs in the next few weeks. On Monday, June 8, Physician Assistant (PA) students in the Class of 2020 will begin to resume clinical rotations. PA students in the Class of 2020 are finishing the new Public Health Elective via remote learning and the Class of 2022 is in the middle of their first semester via remote learning.
The Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine reopened its Simulation Learning Centers (SLC) on Tuesday, June 2. Predoctoral DMD and DMD Advanced Standing Class of 2020 and the postdoctoral advanced education resident Class of 2020 are returning to the SLC to complete their graduation requirements, followed by the completion of the D2 Preclinical Fixed Prosthodontics classes, as well as simulation sessions for upcoming CDCA examinations. Anyone arriving at GSDM will undergo screening before they can enter the dental facilities, including the SLC.
The next step in the gradual, phased reopening of GSDM is to finalize our application to resume in-person patient care in our dental Patient Treatment Centers, which is expected this week.
As we mentioned in the May 29 update, when you return to the Medical Campus you will see signage on campus on building entrances, in corridors, stairwells, elevators, etc.
Here are photos of the Talbot building entrances.
Here are some photos that show examples of signage you will see on our classroom doors advising entrance and exit, and reminding all to wear face covering and observe physical distancing.
