Poster 2:

Adapting Clinical Placement in the COVID “New Normal.”

Geoff Currie & Kym Barry (Charles Sturt University, Australia)

COVID-19 in Australia forced long-term closure of state borders and quarantine requirements for those moving between states or from COVID-19 hot spots. With many “unknown unknowns” during early phases of COVID-19, management of clinical placement of students was reactive in nature and variable from site to site. The rapid assimilation of undergraduate Nuclear Medicine students to remote learning environments further exacerbated clinical circumstances. Reactive measures were a culmination of student risk from high probability of COVID-19 patient contact, the risk to staff of external students coming into the environment, and subsequent risk to sustainability of operations. More proactive strategies emerged as “known unknowns” and “known knowns” emerged allowing improved support for our remote students.