Ten thousand medical students in Italy got some big news a few months ago: Forget your last year of medical school and forget about that big licensing exam; you’re going to the front lines. One of the countries hit hardest by the novel coronavirus pandemic, Italy, decided to go all-hands-on-deck and allow their student doctors in their final year to begin practicing nine months early and start serving in the fight against COVID-19.
Another country profoundly affected by COVID-19, the U.S., has taken a different approach. The vast majority of American medical students are being benched during this crisis, with the Association of American Medical Colleges recommending no medical students engage in direct patient care, at least for the time being.
Medical students are facing an uncertain, anxiety-provoking situation as mandatory exams are postponed indefinitely, clinical rotations canceled and curricula rewritten and revised. Nevertheless, eager medical students all over the country are going above and beyond to help in any ways that they can, while continuing to learn and grow as students.
Most projects by medical students in response to COVID-19 began as small grassroots movements, and as the months went on we saw developments of larger, collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts involving not only the students, but faculty and outside volunteers as well. Because most medical students have been largely unable to engage in direct patient care, students have had to get creative about unique ways in which they can contribute.
Some projects are simply grassroots volunteer efforts that students of any level could participate in, even those without the advanced clinical skills that are developed only in the later years of medical education. A medical student from Ross University formed a group called NYC COVIDSitters, a group of medical students who perform routine but essential tasks like babysitting and grocery shopping for healthcare workers. Similar medical student groups have popped up in Minnesota, Michigan, California, and just about anywhere else that medical students are found. These projects have allowed med students of all levels to make a profound contribution to their communities’ response to COVID-19 — even if they haven’t yet mastered how to interpret a chest x-ray.
Other students have found outlets for their clinical knowledge and skills to assist in the COVID response. The University of Tennessee College of Medicine has offered students what is currently a unique opportunity to work directly with potential COVID-19 patients by staffing a drive-through testing site. The essential process of contact tracing is being performed by medical student volunteers all around the country. Some medical schools are having students call patients who recover from COVID to encourage them to donate their plasma, and at least one of those recovered patients donating plasma is a medical student herself!
How do these student-led projects come to fruition? At my own institution, Penn State College of Medicine, the process began when a few students began collaborating with faculty members to create a medical student COVID task force for students interested in aiding with the pandemic response. Within a few days over 300 medical students, about half of the total student body, signed up to volunteer for these various projects, even as many of them concurrently focused on things like licensing exam preparation, transitioning to residency, beginning clerkships, and continuing to learn via online lectures. Nearly 20 projects currently underway include blood drive assistance, plasma donation solicitation, and IT consultation.
“I feel medical students have largely the same responsibilities as other community members in the age of COVID — to act in the best interests of their community and do what they can to help,” said Matthew Pelton, a third-year medical student at Penn State and a project leader. “What that means for each medical student is different, depending on their ability, resources, and knowledge.”
Indeed, students have been finding countless ways to use their unique strengths and skills to assist wherever they can. One project employs medical student volunteers to check in with former volunteers at the hospital and ensure that they are not succumbing to loneliness or social isolation. Another project pairs medical students with patients who have complex healthcare needs, and the medical students help them navigate the complicated healthcare systems they must encounter.
The project that I chose to join is the contact tracing task force. Through resources available to medical students, we were able to create a HIPAA-compliant database of individuals in our healthcare system who were exposed to COVID-19, recruit enough volunteers to contact every presumed or confirmed case of COVID-19 for 14 days, and provide remote guidance as to how individuals who were exposed to COVID-19 can remain safely quarantined and minimize the risk of spread, even to members of the same household.
The project is supervised by Christopher Sciamanna, MD, an internal medicine physician at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. However, the bulk of the work is performed by medical students, including dozens of daily calls and training of new volunteers.
“The student response to the contact tracing project has been incredible and amazing to see,” said Paige Koetter, a third-year medical student at Penn State who leads the contact tracing program along with Pelton. “There are over 300 students involved in 20-plus health system aligned projects and the contact tracing project consists of a third of those students.”
Building a robust contact tracing system has since become one of the main priorities of the national and local COVID response, and volunteer contact tracers like the medical students at Penn State College of Medicine have become an invaluable resource in areas that lack a robust pre-existing contact tracing program.
“We see the work we are doing as an opportunity to use the skills we have gained during medical school to provide real tangible value to our community and our health systems,” Pelton said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has interfered with the lives of just about everyone, and medical students are no exception. While many medical students are facing uncertainty as to how they will continue to learn and how they’ll be able to graduate, future doctors across the nation have stepped up to help our country through the pandemic in any way they can. Even if they have to do it from the sidelines.
Gregory Vece is a medical student at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, set to graduate in 2021. His professional interests include advocacy, global health, and disorders of the mind.
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
