CAHS students rise to the challenge during the pandemic

University of Cincinnati’s (UC) College of Allied Health Sciences educates passionate students in a variety of health care’s helping professions. It should come as no surprise when a pandemic threatened the health and well-being of our communities – students in the college were ready and willing to give their time and efforts to fight the Coronavirus (COVID-19).  

From leading direct-patient care efforts to filling needs in a testing lab – here are some of their stories.  

You could call respiratory therapists (RT) the unsung heroes of the pandemic. Nurses and doctors more often come to mind when it comes to the health care heroes getting us through the COVID-19 battle, but RT’s are responsible for all things related to a patients’ breathing. 

Jackie Davis, a student in the Master of Science in Respiratory Therapy (MSRT) program, also works on the frontlines as a Registered Respiratory Therapist (Adult Critical Care Specialist) at Mercy Health-Anderson Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

A total of 12 Master of Social Work (MSW) students were trained extensively and hired to take on case investigator roles at the University of Cincinnati where they would take the lead on cases as they come in. They become the point of contact for the student – informing them if they need to quarantine, they contact housing if a student needs to be moved and monitor the student during quarantine or isolation. After the case investigator has completed their initial assessment, a contact tracer is responsible for calling the student back to get information about the students’ primary and secondary contacts. A total of 7 MSW students are currently serving as contact tracers among the large team dedicated to that task. 

Third-year speech language and hearing sciences major Madeline Skeeters wanted to find a way to lend a helping hand at the start of the pandemic and an opportunity came up to work at Solaris Diagnostics, a testing laboratory located in Nicholasville, Kentucky. 

“They were used to getting 200 specimen a day and then the pandemic hit and all of a sudden they were getting thousands” says Skeeters. 

The job began as a two-week gig but recognizing the ongoing need Skeeters ended up leasing a house with a few other students to continue to help the lab process the influx of Coronavirus tests.