he UF College of Veterinary Medicine and the UF Veterinary Hospitals have remained open throughout the pandemic, continually and actively monitoring the COVID-19 situation. In May, the college began phasing back several areas of operations, which had been on hold since mid-March. Through UF Health Screen, Test & Protect, which began in June, the college has been able to bring most faculty, staff and students safely back to campus. The college remains committed to patient and client safety, as well as to the safety and well-being of faculty, staff, interns, house officers and students.

In accordance with federal, state and regional public health recommendations, and with guidance from UF Health and UF administration, the college has modified its operations in several ways reinforcing through signage and ongoing messaging across our campus, the importance of the “Three W’s”: Wear a mask, wash your hands and watch your distance. Our administration and faculty have communicated regularly with our students and staff through ongoing town halls, virtual huddles and Zoom meetings to remain as transparent as possible and to ensure that each person has access to the most current information and best resources to help them navigate their personal and work-related situations during the pandemic.

Specific stories of hard work and generosity emerged during these trying times. We are proud to share some specific examples of how the college and the UFVH have responded to help protect and empower our students, faculty and staff, as well as UF Health workers on the front lines.

•  Interim Dean Dana Zimmel, D.V.M., has held ongoing collegewide town halls since late March, providing updates on college and hospital operations as well as enterprise-wide overviews and answering questions from participants on a variety of topics.
• Interim Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Amanda House, D.V.M., communicates weekly to our professional students via email as well as regularly in virtual student huddles and listening sessions to summarize curriculum-related updates, solicit student feedback, address questions and concerns and to provide resources these students can avail themselves of for further information.
• Interim Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs Chris Sanchez, D.V.M., Ph.D., provides ongoing hospital-related updates in monthly hospital meetings and via weekly emails. Other members of the college leadership team have also maintained regular communication virtually with faculty as well as graduate students to provide support.

• Faculty engaged in all aspects of teaching in the D.V.M. curriculum transitioned on very short notice in March to providing course content in an online format. Beginning with the fall semester, we began delivering the curriculum in a hybrid of online and in-person classes.
• To help students complete their spring semester, our faculty converted most laboratory courses to a virtual experience, and clinical faculty retooled the entire clerkship experience to continue clinical education for every clerkship in a virtual format. Both efforts took a tremendous amount of time and dedication of our faculty to accomplish this task. They worked together as teams, creating new methods of clinical education.
• Vice Rounds: To mitigate effects of COVID-19-related shifts to online clinical veterinary training, a group of UF veterinarians, led by Alex Fox-Alvarez, D.V.M., an assistant professor of small animal surgery at the college, launched a cooperative in March to generate online clinical-based rounds for shared use: Veterinary Isolated Clinical Education, or VICE, Rounds. VICE Rounds emulated the clinical case experience using the unique resources and perspectives of veterinary educators from different specialties, universities and locations. Since its initial launch in March, the program has created over 60 recorded clinical topic rounds available for use from veterinary educators representing 11 veterinary universities and three private practices.

• In response to a call for assistance by UF Health administration, efforts led by Maureen Long, D.V.M., Ph.D., and Chris Adin, D.V.M., in April resulted in several loads of personal protective equipment, or PPE, being collected from college research labs, research faculty and a surgery teaching lab. This equipment was donated to UF Health to contribute to protection of front-line health care workers.
• In addition to helping gather PPE from college research laboratories to help their human health colleagues, college investigators associated with the Emerging Pathogens Institute assisted in research efforts involving UF Health COVID-19 molecular diagnostic testing in The Villages®. Investigators are also working to determine the validity of various formats for testing for COVID-19 in a variety of animals, including humans.
• Two UFCVM researchers are associated with COVID-19- related studies that received funding in late spring by UF’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. Leah Reznikov, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physiological sciences, is working to identify a drug or drugs that can potentially be used to prevent and/or treat infection with COVID-19 by interfering with a known behavior of the virus. Chris Vulpe, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of physiological sciences, is part of a research team harnessing the power of genomic editing to illuminate druggable targets in human cells for the fight against the coronavirus.
• Following a shutdown of all but essential research activities in March, the college’s research operations have fully resumed with oversight from UF’s Office of Research and updated safety guidelines.

• All classes of students in the D.V.M. program, including those on clinical rotations, transitioned to attending classes online by March 17, and graduate students made the online transition effective March 23. Members of the Class of 2022 returned to clinics on July 13 after completing the first part of their rotations virtually. All other UFCVM veterinary students began classes on Aug. 17. We are now delivering our curriculum in a hybrid of online and face-to-face education in small groups.
• Dr. Jamie Stahl has continued offering counseling services for our D.V.M. students in a virtual format.
• Senior exit interviews were conducted via Zoom, and the first and second year classes participated in virtual end of year curriculum feedback sessions.
• Commencement for the Class of 2020 was held virtually this year on May 23, using a third-party vendor to create a true-to-life as possible ceremony. Virtual commencement ceremonies for graduate students receiving M.S. or Ph.D. degrees took place in the spring on April 30 and in the summer on August 14.

• Throughout the pandemic, our faculty, house officers and staff continued to come in to the UF Veterinary Hospitals to provide clinical service for animals that had urgent or emergent conditions requiring care.
• The clinical faculty worked closely with hospital administration to develop a new way to continue to provide clinical care to our patients while at the same time reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission within our hospital team and the hospital team’s interactions with clients. We have moved to drive-up/dropoff procedures for patients to minimize contact with owners.
• The UF Pet Emergency Treatment Center in Ocala functioned in the same manner as Gainesville, which has allowed us to continue to provide these valuable services to that community. • Several UF Veterinary Hospital faculty members thanked staff members and supported local restaurants by donating lunches that were delivered to hospital workers in both the small and large animal hospitals.

• The UF Maddie’s Shelter Medicine program is one of four colleges of veterinary medicine shelter programs nonprofit that banded together with national animal welfare non-profit organizations and foundations, and multiple companies to disseminate knowledge and guide a response to COVID-19. This was facilitated through multiple weekly Zoom meetings attended by tens to hundreds of veterinarians, veterinary students, municipal and nonprofit shelter leadership, and support staff; 15 webinars with views ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands, guiding shelters and spay-neuter clinics in navigating the pandemic; and a COVID-19 oriented web page that houses downloadable documents on sanitation, PPE, shelter operations, shelter medicine, pet owner resources, Facebook groups and e-newsletters.