Infectious disease course in its Taylor Swift era

What started as a “Bad Blood” pun in a pulmonary class last year— word play on bloodstream infections and Taylor Swift’s song of the same title on her album 1989— has turned into a full-blown College of Pharmacy course themed around the famous singer. 

Dr. Elizabeth Hirsch and Dr. Ann Philbrick are instructors of the Swift-themed infectious disease course, which is a one-time-only offering. Infectious disease (PHAR6768) is a required course for current third-year pharmacy students, but with the transition from the CI-1 curriculum to MNspire, the college’s new curriculum, it will be the last time this course is taught. As this year’s P3 students are the final cohort of the CI-1 curriculum, Hirsch and Philbrick wanted to put in extra care and consideration to make the course engaging and entertaining for them. A current P4 student and avid Swiftie, Thuy Ho, helped “Swift-ify” the course over the summer, creating the themes and titles for the class’s team-based learning sessions (TBLs). 

Early on in the course, they conducted an informal poll to get a sense of students’ feelings about the theme. 

“We said, ‘Raise your hand if you're excited about the Taylor Swift theme, then raise your hand if you're already annoyed by the Taylor Swift theme,’ and we got a mix of responses,” Hirsch said. “But the students who weren’t fans, a couple of them thought, ‘Well, if it helps me learn infectious disease then, I'm all for it.’”

Hirsch is a new Swiftie following the release of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in movie theaters last year. Philbrick, while she enjoys Swift’s music, sees the course theme more as a vessel for her creativity. She created shirts for instructors reading ‘TTIDPD’ on the front— standing for The Tortured Infectious Diseases Pharmacists Department— mirroring the font of Swift’s album The Tortured Poets Department, which students and external lecturers from the course then requested for themselves. Philbrick also crafted keychains— an allusion to a lyric in the 10-minute version of “All Too Well”— with ‘TTIDPD’ on one side and the block ‘M’ for University of Minnesota on the other, which they gave away as prizes throughout the course. Philbrick and Hirsch send out weekly announcements that incorporate Swift lyrics or references and have “Swift-ified” a couple of their lectures. For their first TBL session, an escape room themed around the album Red, Hirsch wore Swift’s signature red lipstick and red, heart-shaped sunglasses, while Philbrick wore a hand-crocheted red scarf like Swift’s in “All Too Well.” And of course, they offer occasional extra credit for Taylor-themed trivia and pun submissions. 

Whether or not the course theme has helped the P3 students learn more effectively about infectious disease is unclear, but it has strengthened Hirsch’s and Philbrick’s relationships with the students. Not to mention, Hirsch says this version has been “a lot more fun” than the traditional infectious disease course they teach.  

“It has helped with community, for sure,” Philbrick said. “It's also helped us get to know some of the students a little bit better because they're excited about Taylor Swift, so they might share a meme with us.”

And, during a recent exam review session, Hirsch sprinkled in some optional Swift trivia with no point value, which around 45 students answered. 

“There is definitely a contingent of students that know Taylor Swift trivia,” Hirsch said. Hirsch and Philbrick hope this last themed offering of the course sends it out in “Style.”