COM Outlook Winter 2021

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 3 Wearing masks, social distancing, and academic courses that are both online and on-site simultaneously— is this the new normal in education? Like it or not, there is a different set of ground rules throughout college campuses, including rescheduling many NCAA sports until spring. Many of us realized that we had to be disciplined and cooperative for the sake of the greater community—and that’s new for so many in this country. Others saw the strategies as a threat to their freedoms and did not adopt the initiatives necessary to rid this country of COVID-19. “To weather this crisis, people need to be reminded that their actions matter—that those actions are what will see the country through the pandemic with fewer lives lost,” wrote Alia E. Dastagir in USA Today . During this period, NSU’s Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine (KPCOM) remained open and continued to provide its students with quality education. All KPCOM academic programs continued the winter 2020 semester online and taught summer courses remotely. Faculty development, student admissions, and department meetings, as well as faculty interviews and presentations, were all moved to an online modality. The fall semester brought the BlendFlex teaching model, and the faculty members in the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs geared up with their personal protective equipment (PPE) and brought on-site teaching back to campus. Students in these programs were given the option of participating online or on-site. In his Time magazine article “The Kids Are Not Alright,” Jeffrey Kluger stated that, eventually, the pandemic will be gone and will assume its place alongside other national traumas, such as 9/11, the Challenger disaster, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. You will someday have the conversation with your friends, clients, or patients—the “Do you remember and where were you when?” exchanges. These are the same conversations many of us have had about the other tragedies mentioned. The goal for our students as future health care professionals will be to ease the pain and make the now more bearable. Hopefully, the memories will be more bearable, too. Phyllis J. Filker, D.M.D., M.P.H. Associate Dean of Undergraduate, Graduate, and Community Education Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine LEADERSHIP Message The fall semester brought the BlendFlex teaching model, and the faculty members in the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs geared up with their personal protective equipment (PPE) and brought on-site teaching back to campus.