Alerts & Advisories

MD Students

Year 1 and Year 2 (pre-clerkship curriculum)

When Tufts University is closed due to a weather emergency, classes on the Tufts University School of Medicine Boston campus are canceled and administrative offices including the library and the fitness center are closed. You will be contacted by the Dean of Educational Affairs regarding any arrangements for exams or other required activities.

For some clinical skills courses – such as Physical Diagnosis or CAP – you may have educational responsibilities even if the campus is closed. If a weather emergency occurs on a CAP day, you should call your CAP preceptor to determine if his/her office will be open. If the office is open and you can safely travel to the site, you should report to your CAP site. For other pre-clerkship clinical skills courses, communication will be sent from the Dean of Educational Affairs as to how to safely participate in clinical educational programming during the pre-clerkship phase despite a school closure.

If safe travel is not possible, let your preceptor and the Office of Student Affairs (Boston: med-osa@tufts.edu and Maine: Dean Whitesell at dena.whitesell@mainehealth.org) know that you will not be able to travel in for the session.

Classes on the Maine campus may continue as scheduled when the Boston campus is closed. Conversely, Maine-track classes may be cancelled due to weather in the Portland area even if Boston is unaffected. Maine-track students who have a school closure in Portland will be contacted by the Dean of Educational Affairs or the Assistant Dean of Educational Affairs Maine Track regarding any arrangements for exams or other required activities.

Years 3 and 4 (clinical rotations in both Boston and Maine)

University closures will not impact students on clinical rotations at area hospitals or physician offices. There are no “snow days” during the clinical years.

However, during a weather emergency, your safety is our highest concern. If you can travel safely to your clinical rotation, you are expected to report to your site. If it would be dangerous to travel to the site, please let your clerkship director and team know, as well as med-osa@tufts.edu for Boston based students and dena.whitesell@mainehealth.org for Maine based students. You will not be penalized for this decision. You may need to make up the clinical time missed, and you will be expected to make-up the day/night if it is a scheduled call shift.

From time to time Tufts University may close the Tufts Health Sciences Campus or the University due to inclement weather. When weather threatens campus or university closings, delayed arrivals or early dismissals, information will be available by calling (617) 627-INFO as early as 6:00am, or by logging on to tufts.edu. In the event of a closure, University administrative offices will generally remain open but operate remotely and classes will meet, or not, depending on the degree program:

Online MPH and DPT Didactic Coursework

In the event of a University or campus closure due to inclement weather, classes that were originally scheduled to meet online will continue to meet as scheduled. Students should notify faculty if they will be unable to attend due to weather-related reasons (e.g. power/internet outage) and arrange to make up any missed content. If a class is unable to be conducted for weather-related reasons it will be rescheduled or replaced with asynchronous or recorded content under the purview of the course director.

Campus Based MPH, MBS, and PA Didactic Coursework, DPT Onsite Clinical Skill Labs

In the event of a University or campus closure due to inclement weather, classes will not meet unless they were already scheduled to meet online. In person classes that don’t meet will be rescheduled or replaced with asynchronous or recorded content under the purview of the course director.

Cancellation or delayed start for DPT Clinical Skill Labs will be separately communicated by the DPT Program Director.

DPT and PA Clinical Education

While students are completing site-based clinical education/rotations they should consult with their site to determine if that site will be open for business during times of inclement weather. If the site is open and a student can safely report to their site during an inclement weather event they are expected to do so. If weather conditions make it unsafe to travel to a site the student should notify the Director of Clinical Education (DPT program) or Associate Program Director (PA Program) as well as their supervisor at the clinical site.

During inclement weather closures, laboratories will be open and if you can safely travel to campus via walking or public transportation (assuming that it's running), and you have time-sensitive experimental work, you may go to your laboratory. If safe travel is not possible, please do not put yourself or others at risk. In that case, let your advisor know that you will not be able to come to campus.