Pharmacy students who spend time working in an institutional setting during the COVID-19 pandemic will have many responsibilities to be reviewed and followed accordingly. Here are six general responsibilities that you will need to be familiar with during your time within an institution. I suggest the acronym “PLEASE” to help keep these responsibilities in mind!

Protocol

Everyone should know the coronavirus protocol being followed at their institution. It could differ slightly or dramatically from others, depending on your institution’s philosophy of medicine. It is part of your responsibility to understand how to observe and maintain the quality of care at the institution.

Location

Everyone should know where COVID-19 patients are being held so you can be aware. Although we are taught on the critical care unit at my institution to treat everyone as if they have COVID-19, it is still good to know where they are being held so you can ensure that you and your team are practicing your best hygiene habits around those patients’ rooms.

Emotion

Within an institutional setting we encounter a variety of individuals. Whether it’s your preceptor, your colleagues, other healthcare professionals or your patients, we should try to keep emotions in check. One way we can do this is by maintaining a sense of normalcy. We want to try and simulate a normal life, except with face masks and minimal physical contact. We should contribute to a calm environment so that our patients who are already in distress (at least for me, in the critical care unit) won’t have additional stress in their lives.

Assist

Consider taking a contact-tracing course for COVID-19. I used the Johns Hopkins version that is free on coursera.org (not a paid sponsorship). Although this isn’t necessarily within our job description, it is important to know in case we are needed to offer assistance in any capacity. It takes a few hours of your life, but it can easily be accomplished during a few lunch breaks over the course of a week.

Strategize

Minimize exposure to your families. Some strategies I use in my day-to-day life include leaving my white coat at my rotation site so I don’t bring in any potential germs back home. (First, check with you preceptor and location to ensure this is okay.) My second strategy is to change and bathe once I’m home to ensure that any germs that came home with me will be isolated to my room.

Education

It’s not every year (knock on wood) that we have to deal with a pandemic. Learn what is and isn’t working throughout this pandemic so that if something like this occurs again we can be better prepared and suited for success. In a way, we are lucky to be given this opportunity for education!

Sheneman is a P4 Student at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy.