How are Medical Students helping in the Battle against COVID-19?

The rise in novel coronavirus pandemic increases the demand for health care professionals. Because of the scarcity of medical professionals, hospitals are looking for other sources for help. Some health care institutions are calling retired doctors and others are taking the help of medical students in order to deal with the immense pressure of COVID-19 pandemic. Medical students are not experienced physicians, but they are very well aware of the important technical skills that can take the load off and help credentialed doctors.

Let us see how medical students are becoming part and parcel of this COVID-19 pandemic in different parts of the world:

• Vietnam’s health ministry has called for all healthcare professionals, including medical students to join hands in the country’s fight against COVID-19.
• In India, the health ministry has already taken steps to get another extremely useful healthcare resource for medical help in the country, and they are the medical college students. Dr. Srinath Reddy, president of Public Health Foundation of India and a member of the national task force on COVID-19, said that the MBBS students who are doing their final internship should be permitted to take care of less critical patients.
• In US medical students across the country are joining the novel coronavirus fight in order to ease the overburdened or pressurized staff of the hospitals. American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) report shows that many U.S. medical schools have permitted students to graduate early this year to join the COVID-19 fight.
• The final year medical students across the UK are becoming part of the frontline to fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic after being graduated a bit before the actual time by their universities.
• Thousands of medical students in Germany have come forward to help health care providers to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In Indonesia, around 15,000 medical students are posted in the country’s battle against novel coronavirus.

According to Dr. Lawrence G. Smith, “While I hope and believe that the brightest minds around the world will soon find treatments for people with Covid-19 and a vaccine to prevent it, I know that helping care for patients in the absence of a cure will teach students humility, an essential trait for all of us but especially for doctors, who are frequently called on to make life or death decisions.

As I watch my students rush into hospital wards well before the ordinary course of their training would have them do so, I find myself inspired not only by their dedication and eagerness to help but also by the knowledge that, as difficult as their path may be, they will emerge from it as better healers, for the benefit of us all.”