The coronavirus is preventing medical students from getting hands-on training in hospitals. Frustrated future doctors are looking for new ways to help.

A medical worker looks on as she treats a patient suffering from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in an intensive care unit at the Oglio Po hospital in Cremona, Italy March 19, 2020.
A medical worker looks on as she treats a patient suffering from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in an intensive care unit at the Oglio Po hospital in Cremona, Italy March 19, 2020.

Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters

  • Medical schools around the US have told their third- and fourth-year students, who typically do clinical rotations in hospitals, to stay home amid the spread of the coronavirus.

  • The Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC, issued guidance last week to temporarily suspend clinical rotations for students. So far, over 165 schools have done that, according to a student-crowdsourced spreadsheet reviewed by Business Insider.

  • AAMC’s chief medical education officer, Dr. Alison Whelan, told Business Insider that educators are working to create new curriculum for these students, which may range from virtual learning to manning phone lines for hospitals to help disseminate accurate information about COVID-19.

  • Some students are taking steps to help healthcare workers, such as babysitting their kids or running errands.

  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Typically, third and fourth year medical students get on-hands training at hospitals, where they learn directly under physicians.

But the coronavirus, which has disrupted virtually every industry in the US, has halted that training, leaving students anxious to help healthcare workers, and without an immediate way to continue their education.

Last week, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) and Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the licensing bodies for medical schools in the US, issued a statement recommending that universities suspend all programs that involve medical students coming into direct contact with patients.

This would ensure the protection of patients and students and help conserve personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, some of whom have been experiencing serious shortages, especially in areas heavily affected by the coronavirus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19.

“We’re kind of in this limbo”

So far, at least 165 medical schools have decided to suspend clinical rotations for their students, according to a medical student crowdsourced spreadsheet reviewed by Business Insider.

Lawren Wooten, a medical student at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, said she was supposed to start clinical rotations in April, and her program has put them on hold.

“We’re kind of in this limbo,” Wooten said. She said it’s possible the rotations could start later than planned, but it’s not clear.

Some students who want to help healthcare workers on the frontlines of fighting the virus have already organized to create ad hoc groups that provide childcare services or run errands for healthcare workers.

Jack Peng, a third year medical student at the University of Maryland Baltimore, which is pausing clinical rotations until at least March 31, is involved in a group called the Baltimore Health Professionals Mutual Aid Cooperative.

Read more: Medical students around the US are offering to babysit for hospital workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic

In New York, which has more than 25,000 COVID-19 cases, Governor Andrew Cuomo has been surveying medical schools to see if students would be willing to help the state’s efforts to combat the coronavirus.

Exams are also being cancelled

Essential exams for medical students have also been suspended as testing centers have closed down, leaving students unsure as to when they will be able to take tests that they would have to pass in order to start their clerkships or graduate.

Vivian Paredes Bhushan, a fourth year medical student at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, which has suspended clinical rotations until at least the end of March, was studying for her exams this month before both were suspended due to the coronavirus. She’s now continuing to prepare, though she isn’t sure when they may take place.

“Hopefully we learn more in the next couple of days,” she said.

What substitutes for clinical rotations could look like

Dr. Alison Whelan, AAMC’s chief medical education officer, said that AAMC and educators are still trying to figure out a curriculum that would appropriately prepare medical students to be ready for when they are put back on clinical rotations. She said she has seen some possibilities of what that could look like already.

They range from consolidating courses that would originally have been taken in increments over the span of months to virtual learning to having students staff phone lines for hospitals to help disseminate information about COVID-19.

One idea currently being developed, Whelan said, would tailor courses to the current pandemic, creating case studies on ethical issues related to COVID-19, asking students to think about scenario planning amidst the current crisis. 

Whelan said that right now the AAMC is encouraging medical educators to take a pause so they have “just a sliver of breathing room” to think about how they can rework medical education to not only be effective and useful for students but to possibly be constructive to the current crisis. 

“We are convening as a group so we can share ideas and we are collecting resources so they can share them out,” Whelan told Business Insider. “We don’t have to all be reinventing the same thing, we can share and be more efficient.”

Nick Rasmus, a third-year medical student at the University of Minnesota, said that although he understands why clinical rotations have been put on pause, he feels like there’s more he and his classmates could do.

“We know things and want to help,” Rasmus said. “We’re reasonably competent, we could do some of the clerical work, typing notes, checking on patients, that type of thing.”

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source: yahoo.com