D. Soled is a third-year student, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
S. Goel is a third-year student, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Acad Med. 2020 Sep;95(9):1384-1387. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000003401.
On March 17, 2020, the Association of American Medical Colleges recommended the suspension of all direct patient contact responsibilities for medical students because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given this change, medical students nationwide had to grapple with how and where they could fill the evolving needs of their schools' affiliated clinical sites, physicians, patients, and the community.
At Harvard Medical School (HMS), student leaders created a COVID-19 Medical Student Response Team to: (1) develop a student-led organizational structure that would optimize students' ability to efficiently mobilize interested peers in the COVID-19 response, both clinically and in the community, in a strategic, safe, smart, and resource-conscious way; and (2) serve as a liaison with the administration and hospital leaders to identify evolving needs and rapidly engage students in those efforts.
Within a week of its inception, the COVID-19 Medical Student Response Team had more than 500 medical student volunteers from HMS and had shared the organizational framework of the response team with multiple medical schools across the country. The HMS student volunteers joined any of the 4 virtual committees to complete this work: Education for the Medical Community, Education for the Broader Community, Activism for Clinical Support, and Community Activism.
The COVID-19 Medical Student Response Team helped to quickly mobilize hundreds of students and has been integrated into HMS's daily workflow. It may serve as a useful model for other schools and hospitals seeking medical student assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Next steps include expanding the initiative further, working with the leaders of response teams at other medical schools to coordinate efforts, and identifying new areas of need at local hospitals and within nearby communities that might benefit from medical student involvement as the pandemic evolves.
2020 年 3 月 17 日,由于 COVID-19 大流行,美国医学院协会建议暂停所有医学生的直接患者接触责任。鉴于这一变化,全国各地的医学生必须努力了解他们如何以及在何处才能满足学校附属临床机构、医生、患者和社区不断变化的需求。
在哈佛医学院 (HMS),学生领袖成立了 COVID-19 医学生应对小组,以:(1) 制定一个由学生领导的组织结构,该结构将以战略、安全、明智和资源意识的方式优化学生在 COVID-19 应对中有效调动有兴趣的同学的能力,无论是在临床还是在社区;(2) 作为与行政和医院领导的联络人,以确定不断变化的需求,并迅速让学生参与这些工作。
在成立后的一周内,COVID-19 医学生应对小组已有来自 HMS 的 500 多名医学生志愿者,并与全国多所医学院分享了应对小组的组织框架。HMS 的学生志愿者加入了 4 个虚拟委员会中的任何一个来完成这项工作:医学社区教育、更广泛社区教育、临床支持行动主义和社区行动主义。
COVID-19 医学生应对小组帮助迅速动员了数百名学生,并已融入 HMS 的日常工作流程。它可能成为其他学校和医院在 COVID-19 大流行期间寻求医学生援助的有用模式。下一步包括进一步扩大该计划,与其他医学院应对小组的领导人合作协调工作,并确定当地医院和附近社区在大流行演变过程中可能受益于医学生参与的新需求领域。