Coronavirus, Public Health Pandemic preparedness, three years early

When Penn Nursing Dean Antonia M. Villarruel and Professor Deborah Becker gave a 2018 presentation at Perry World House with Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins about the need for disaster preparedness, they had no idea just how prescient that talk—and the subsequent simulations they put on—would end up being. 

“We knew we wanted to engage more people in training for these events so that if they happened, we would be better prepared,” says Becker, a practice professor of nursing and director of Penn’s Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program. “We had no idea we were on the cusp of a worldwide pandemic.” 

From that initial talk came three simulation situations, created with Jenkins, Shelley Rankin and Stephen Cole from Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, Hillary Nelson from the Perelman School of Medicine, and Cathy Poon of the University of the Sciences.  

Read more in Penn Today >>