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Theresa Smith, certified registered nurse practitioner and director of Student Health Services
In fall 2020, while continuing to provide care both online and in person to students on campus and in the surrounding community, we started a robust planning process with COVID leadership and key University stakeholders. With trainers in Athletics, we purposefully tested a cohort of students who wanted to use the Kuch center with rapid COVID tests on a weekly basis. As positive cases surfaced, we began to mobilize our planning around contact tracing.
Planning, testing, and contact tracing were three of the University’s largest endeavors that helped make the fall semester successful. That helped us conclude that early detection through testing and quick control of positive cases mitigates further spread.
When Arcadia decided to welcome back to campus nearly 1,000 residential and commuter students for the spring 2021 semester, we again mobilized and increased our efforts to facilitate a healthy campus community for all of our students, faculty, and staff, and especially the most vulnerable among us.
The Great Room in the Commons was transformed into a COVID surveillance testing site that operates like a machine. While other schools decided to do minimum testing, we committed to a more robust regimen of testing our students, commuters, faculty, and staff that have campus access on a weekly basis. As a practitioner, I have to applaud the University for taking on an extra financial burden to ensure the health and safety of our community.
We conduct testing in the following ways:
I would like to acknowledge nurse practitioner Kristin Druien, MSN, CRNP, FNP-BC; medical assistant Amanda Holden; administrative assistant Debbie Devine, who retired in March after 20 years; and office assistant and wellness programmer Savannah Bullinger. Without this tremendous team, the amount of testing we performed along with the continued level of care we provide for the students would simply not be possible. This work reflects and pays tribute to the Florence Nightingale pledge: “I shall be loyal to my work and devoted toward the welfare of those committed to my care.”