2020 in Photos: Revisit a Remarkable Year at Health Sciences
Students in the College of Medicine – Tucson Class of 2024 wear masks and keep a safe distance from one another as they pick up their white coats, the traditional activity marking the beginning of their four-year medical school experience.
In a year defined by a pandemic that changed much of our personal and professional lives, the University of Arizona Health Sciences made its mark on the world once again. Health Sciences and its five colleges continued to wholeheartedly tackle their mission to educate the next generation of health care experts, conduct innovative research to solve pervasive health care problems and serve our communities through outreach.
While much of the work centered on pandemic-related response and adaptation, the Health Sciences community drew upon its strengths, skills and knowledge to continue existing work, pivot to COVID-19 projects, and find new ways to accomplish both.
Take a look back at some of those milestones this year. Then, explore more from 2020 in the Health Sciences Connect photo gallery archive.
Students from the University of Arizona College of Nursing demonstrate administering an IV to a manikin during the Connect2STEM event in Phoenix in January.
Senior Vice President for Health Sciences Michael D. Dake, MD, held a town hall at the Health Sciences campus in Tucson on Jan. 28 to share updates on the Health Sciences strategic initiatives.
Senior Vice President for Health Sciences Michael D. Dake, MD, held a town hall at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus Jan. 29 to share updates on the Health Sciences strategic initiatives. He announced new opportunities for faculty and students, including a new center, fellowship opportunities and new Phoenix programming.
The College of Medicine – Phoenix recipients of the first Primary Care Physician scholarship celebrated their awards at a reception in January. These medical students have committed to practicing a primary care profession in Arizona after they graduate, helping to reduce the shortage of such care in underserved urban and rural communities across the state.
The first group of recipients of the Primary Care Physician scholarship program celebrated their awards at a reception in Tucson. These students – eight in Phoenix and 21 in Tucson, have committed to practicing a primary care profession in an underserved urban or rural community in Arizona. Here, Caylan Moore, left, and Kaloni Philipp, right, watch as Naiby Rodriguez, center, hugs China Rae Newman after the PCP Scholarship reception in Tucson, Ariz.
The 10th annual “On Our Own Time” art exhibit featured art made by University of Arizona employees and their immediate family members, including many Health Sciences employees from Phoenix and Tucson. A reception to celebrate their creations was held Feb. 15 in the Bioscience Research Laboratories lobby in Tucson.
On Feb. 21, the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy opened its renovated and expanded Skaggs Center, which features new laboratory space and more.
Attendees explore the Faculty Commons + Advisory space inside the Health Science Innovation Building. In early March, the University of Arizona Health Sciences opened space as an innovative gathering place for faculty across the university to meet, collaborate and get advice.
Briggs Carhart, a master’s degree student in public health, helps the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center field the hundreds of daily calls they received in mid-March from people worried about the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 10, the Arizona Simulation Technology & Education Center (ASTEC) at Health Sciences participated in Tucson Airport Authority’s full-scale emergency exercise, which takes place every three years as required by federal law. Merryl Lopido, simulation operations specialist for ASTEC, and David Biffar, ASTEC’s assistant director of operations, use special-effects makeup to simulate traumatic injuries on volunteer Helen Ward’s leg. Many volunteers received simulated wounds with fake blood or embedded debris to enhance the emergency response exercise.
The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health worked with Tucson Fire Department and the Western Regional Public Health Training Center to produce a training video for first responders on COVID-19 emergency calls in early March. Erich Healy, right, films as Tucson Fire Department’s Chris LaFave, left, helps guide Jonathan Sexton, PhD, who is playing a possible COVID-19 patient in a training video, into an ambulance.
David T. Harris, PhD, (left) and Michael Badowski, PhD, (right) created sample collection kits to help alleviate the shortage of COVID-19 testing capabilities in March and April. The kits shown are ready for delivery to Arizona health care providers to test patients for COVID-19. The group was planning to produce approximately 5,000 sample collection kits per week, and delivered 1,000 of them to Banner-University Medical Center Tucson in early April.
Tory Middlebrooks, of University Libraries, holds a face shield, which is designed to be worn with additional PPE such as a mask. Middlebrooks runs the 3D printers that produced the headbands for the face shields created by University of Arizona employees and students in makerspaces across campus. The effort was well underway by early April.
In response to the shortage of PPE, a group of researchers at the University of Arizona College of Engineering and UArizona Health Sciences worked together to design, 3D print and test masks for health care workers at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson in April. Pictured here: Lab Manager Christopher Morton, left, Sairam Parthasarathy, MD, center, and engineering graduate student Connor Stahl.
This poster plays on the art and persona of Frida Kahlo in urging people to wear masks on their faces. “I was talking with one of my classmates about still seeing a lot of non-compliant or no social distancing in grocery stores and Walmart's and things like that,” said Cazandra Zaragoza, MPH, a fourth-year medical student at the College of Medicine – Tucson, who helped make and distribute the posters.
The five Health Sciences colleges planned special ways to mark the rite-of-passage of earning a degree, despite social distancing and stay-at-home orders in May. Medical student Bethany Boczar wears her regalia for a studio shoot in the Health Sciences Innovation Building as Biocommunications photographer Mitchell Masilun and videographer Gilberto Vega film for the College of Medicine – Tucson’s virtual convocation ceremony.
University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson students in the Commitment to Underserved People Program held a food and PPE supply drive to help the Navajo Nation, which was hard hit during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students Lynn Pham, Guadalupe Davila, Nicole Bejany and Thomasina Blackwater sort and catalog fabric that will be made into face masks for Navajo Nation residents.
Vanessa Jensen, MD, a University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson surgery alumna, helps drop off masks, hand sanitizer and other COVID-19 supplies needed on the Navajo Nation.
On April 30, the University of Arizona and the state of Arizona began an effort to test all frontline health care workers and first responders for antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19. The first group included 4,500 first responders, health care workers, and some members of the general public from Pima County. UArizona President Robert C. Robbins undergoes a blood draw for his antibody test.
Barbara Fransway, manager of University of Arizona Genetics Core Research Services, transfers blood serum into testing plates to determine if the samples contain antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19.
Barbara Fransway (left), manager of University of Arizona Genetics Core Research Services, transfers blood serum to testing plates as Matthew Kaplan, manager for University of Arizona Functional Genomics Core, evaluates the Biomek robot prior to performing antibody testing.
Jose Benitez from University of Arizona Facilities Management cleans a table in the Health Sciences Innovation Building.
Mary Matthews, left, and Angie Souza, right, of Health Sciences Planning and Facilities, measure the distance between desks in the Health Sciences Innovation Building to design new seating arrangements to ensure people stay six feet apart.
Practicing safe physical distancing, first-year College of Medicine – Tucson students meet their house dean Violet Siwik, MD (right). Back row, from left: Yash Suri and Monica Diaz. Front row, from left: Leigh Myles, Isabelle Chea, Leen Ayyoub, and Craig McClure, MD, mentor for Rincon House students.
White coats in hand, three new members of the Class of 2024 leave the College of Medicine – Tucson building. From left: Lupita Molina, Julia Alvarenga Couto and Lawrence Sun.
University of Arizona student Heath Zuniga inserts a nasal swab into his nose. The COVID-19 test was required for all dormitory residents prior to moving in to their dorms in August, and remains available to students and staff.
Lab technician Cindy Bujanda places a set of antigen sample tubes under a hood in the testing laboratory. Students and staff receive nasal swab results within two hours.
Michelle Ortiz, PhD., of the College of Medicine – Tucson’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, wears a mask for her community.
Primary Care Physician Scholarship recipient and first-year College of Medicine – Tucson student Oluwatobi Faith Odeneye shares why he wears a mask.
First year College of Medicine – Tucson student Yasi Suri, left, uses hand sanitizer before he and fellow first year student Jonathan Yasmeh head to a class in the Health Science Innovation Building.
Jeffery Hanna administers a COVID-19 PCR test to UArizona faculty member. Hanna is affiliated with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health in Phoenix. COVID-19 PCR testing was offered at both the Tucson and Phoenix campuses in 2020. A real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test is a molecular diagnostic testing technique that detects the genetic material from the virus. The samples can be collected in a variety of ways, including nasopharyngeal swab and saline gargle.
The second group of Primary Care Physician Scholarship recipients were announced in September. Eleven of the new scholarship recipients are from the College of Medicine – Phoenix, including first-year student Elen Mendoza. Recipients must commit to practicing a primary care profession in an underserved rural or urban community in Arizona.
The second group of Primary Care Physician Scholarship recipients were announced in September. Twenty of the new scholarship recipients are from the College of Medicine – Tucson, including Tatiana Jerome. The students commit to becoming primary care providers in underserved communities in Arizona.
University of Arizona Health Sciences students from the College of Nursing and the College of Pharmacy spent the final week of October providing campus flu shot clinics in the Student Union on Main Campus and the Recreation and Wellness Center in Honors Village. Nearly 1,000 students were immunized by pharmacy and nursing students.
Fourth-year College of Pharmacy student Lisa Le expels air bubbles out of a flu vaccine before administering it to a fellow student as part of a student flu shot clinic in October.
Second-year College of Medicine – Tucson students Paul Nguyen, left, and Arturo Hernandez practice intubation in the ASTEC lab Nov. 18. Instructor Deana Smith, BS, BSN, RN, is an ASTEC simulation education specialist.
Dr. Elaine Situ-LaCasse (pictured on the laptop) receives a livestream of the exam results and assists in diagnosing a standardized patient during a telehealth training consultation with Julia Brown, MD, emergency department medical director at the Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona.