An Interprofessional Response to COVID-19 in a CSD Graduate Program: A Blessing in Disguise?
Mitzi S. Brammer, Ph.D.
Abstract
This research highlights one private midwestern university’s response to COVID-19. The author collaborated with university recreational directors and the campus ministry program in planning and implementing a mentoring program focused on first-year graduate students enrolled in a communication sciences and disorders program. By its nature of being a health science, it carries a high level of rigor. Additionally, the graduate program is highly competitive. The mixed-methods study describes the mentoring program and how it was implemented. As such quantitative and qualitative data are shared to show how communication sciences and disorders graduate students’ first-year experiences have been shaped by participation in an interprofessional mentoring program. T-test scores showed extremely significant changes in students’ perceptions of their own resilience from the beginning to the conclusion of the semester-long mentoring program. Qualitative data obtained from student interviews substantiate the quantitative data. Discussion of results, study limitations, as well as implications for practice are included.