Updates for SSOM Students and FAQs

When are we supposed to be back on campus? Some of us out of state students are waiting to move and sign a lease until we get a clear communication from administration of a firm date when they would be required to be on campus.

We feel it is necessary to review once again our earlier response concerning our “return to campus date” of October 12th as it appears that there is still uncertainty or mixed messages that are being circulated. However, before we reiterate this start date, it is important to put our actions into the context of what our colleagues in the other Chicagoland area medical schools implemented in these same pandemic circumstances. Our course was based on several assumptions as the current COVID pandemic was “named” in March 2020 and directed by our accreditation body, AMA, AAMC, State and Federal organizations and our University who all imposed multiple mandates we were required to follow and implement. The one consistent principle transmitted to us from all these groups was the need to ensure student safety within a healthcare environment where your education occurs.

To address these organizational inputs, we modified our curriculum so it would allow progression of students in their pre-clinical and clinical education within a healthcare system that had to first prioritize patient care. Only when this clinical environment “normalized” would we first allow our students to return to clinical clerkships. The M3 and M4 students were successfully reintegrated into their clinical clerkships on schedule (July 6th) and that environment continues to be monitored.

While all the M3 and M4 students planned to begin their clinical training on schedule and were on site, we knew that most M1s and many M2s were not. The other medical schools in our area planned to implement online education, as did we, but required their students to be onsite when their school year began, regardless of whether they planned to introduce face-to-face or other onsite student activities. We decided it may be more prudent to allow our students an extended time to return because of the uncertainties of travel, family responsibilities and concerns. So, we began our online curriculum on August 3rd, but with the ability to do it all virtually and delay our preclinical students required return to campus until October 12th, as frequently messaged, our regularly scheduled fall break. We knew that students would make different decisions as to when to move or return to the area so, we allowed the curriculum delivery to remain online as to not disadvantage those students who elected not to return until October 12th. Currently, as per our survey a week ago, over 80% of students have returned to campus.

We have planned for additional contingencies, but the general theme of recent student questions has been “What happens if the pandemic worsens in October, November, December, etc.”? Once again, our primary concern is your safety and then the availability of faculty to effectively supervise you within a healthcare environment where portions of your pre-clinical education occur. With our October 12th date, faculty are now able to plan and schedule clinical exercises, patient H&Ps, remediations/reviews, extracurricular educational activity, support, and service activities. As there have been changes within our calendaring/room reservation system, changes in these activities will not appear in the calendar until later.

In those circumstances where students chose to delay their return and it is now increasingly problematic for them to arrive on site, these cases will he handled and discussed with those students on an individual basis. (One last point of concern regarded a scheduled anatomy exam on October 12th, that date is being changed and students will be updated on the new date by the SHB course director.)

As a follow up question, what happens if over the Thanksgiving break, I need to self-quarantine on return?

If you travel to and stay in a state that Chicago has listed as requiring quarantine on return, then self- quarantine is what you need to do. Within these identified states, based on the number of COVID cases being recorded, your chance of being exposed is higher, even with PPE and that is the risk that you return with. Depending on what is scheduled within our curriculum at that time, there may be no significant disruption in your education. However, the need to quarantine should be taken seriously as you would have the potential to expose other students, standardized patients or within the hospital, patients, residents, faculty, etc. So, if you were to become infected, all these students and clinical faculty would need to quarantine, not to mention others you contacted within the school.

As a healthcare provider you are becoming an essential person, and this comes with more responsibilities and less latitude. If you decide to travel any way, then that is an outcome that you will need to accept.

I am a MS1 and I am wondering if we could be proctored for our exams? I know that the pandemic has brought along unprecedented times, but there are several available online proctoring services that other medical schools have implemented. I think this would benefit students, especially since we are being ranked.

The University has purchased a license for a software package that offers proctoring. However, it has not been officially rolled out yet and we are yet uncertain as to whether that will interface with our exam delivery system. In any case, this software package, like most other proctoring software programs basically acts as a browser lockdown device (i.e. it would prevent you from accessing any browser on the computer you were taking the test on). The obvious loophole is that we would not be able to stop you from accessing the internet with your phone or another device. It also would not stop you from seeking help from other sources e.g. textbooks, study aids, other individuals etc.

Theoretically, it is possible to proctor exams using zoom or some other video chat software. However, for that to work every student would need to have a connection both to the exam and to zoom (with the video on). This results in the utilization of a huge amount of bandwidth that could result in exam access for those individual students crashing. Since internet access has been a problem for some, this would just exacerbate that concern. There are also several other issues that have come up when we have tried this strategy in the past. While there are other solutions out there- none of them are perfect.

Given all of that, we have chosen to treat you as a responsible professional, with the hope that you will all take that responsibility seriously and act accordingly. We have a host of statistical data on many of our exams and individual questions. As a result, it has been possible to run analyses of the exams that have been held thus far. Based upon our analysis, specifically of the M2 exams, there does not appear to be any evidence of significant cheating. If we were to find evidence of cheating, we would take that very seriously and there would likely be significant repercussions. In any case, the truth is, that given that we are entirely Pass/Fail, if a student is cheating, they are only cheating themselves. The idea behind exams is to provide students with feedback on how they are managing to learn the material in preparation for their licensing exams, it is also a way for us to identify those students that might be struggling in order to provide them with help. If students are cheating, they will be missing out on all of that.

Finally, since we are gradually opening access to the Cuneo building, we are currently working on the possibility of safely holding all class exams on campus. However, for that to happen we will need to ensure that we follow the State of Illinois’ guidelines on indoor usage, as well as solve any logistical and technological issues.

... while I understand that classes are pass/fail, our grades in those classes are used to rank us in quintiles. This ranking will subsequently impact our Dean's letters and may limit students' abilities to match into residencies. Other students have also expressed the same pressure they feel to perform because of this ranking situation. Given those factors, I and some other students feel uncomfortable with the proctoring situation, since our grades do matter.

This is an important misperception of residency selection and as most other urban legends are based on a misinterpretation of things. Residency programs are increasingly paying less attention to your grades, and focusing on evidence of leadership, service, clinical performance, letters of recommendations and what is rapidly diminishing in “importance” STEP 1 scores (by the way these are going to be Pass/Fail). In addition, the ranking of students at SSOM will adequately consider your academic performance so, nothing is lost.

We would suggest you use your exam performance (as you know, you can see your scores within your personal LUMEN sign in) to calibrate your effort as well as discovering discrepancies in effort and performance. While you can make your life’s focus on getting the highest score in your cohort, you are not competing with anyone and no one knows (nor do they likely care) what your score on an exam is, as our Pass designation is a good indicator that you have grasped the material. Where you can be of help, if the situation arises, is if you are willing to offer or help those in your small group who are having difficulty. Medicine is a team sport, and this is one way that you can demonstrate leadership and it is a nice thing to do. By the way I am sure that “serving others”, was in your medical school application’s personal statement.

So, do not worry about residency application now as that is more than 3 1⁄2 years away!!