Medical students volunteering to help in any way
While not seeing patients, they fill gaps in resources
Staying at home has proven difficult for antsy Chicagoans who are suddenly spending large spans of time indoors in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.
But the order has been a challenge in another sense for medical students, who felt unable to answer their calling to help others, particularly after many were pulled from clinical rotations to avoid unnecessary exposure to or spread of the deadly coronavirus.
“It felt wrong to do nothing, even as you see our teachers and mentors run headfirst into their work,” said Tricia Pendergrast, a first-year medical student at Northwestern University. “On social media, I watched people I respect beyond words talk about going to work and not having N95 masks, and I watched them start to get fevers and coronavirus. It was gutwrenching to watch.”
Clusters of students of medicine and other health care fields asked themselves: If we can’t see patients, what else can we do?
Pendergrast, seeing the pleas for personal protective equipment, or PPE, for health care workers, joined up with classmates to seek donations and get them to the front lines of the epidemic. Other students are working to boost support for blood drives, have offered to perform laboratory tests and have organized food drives for health care workers who don’t have time to buy groceries.
As efforts launched across the city, the students realized working together would amplify their impact. So last week, groups from Northwestern and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago combined efforts, and students quickly joined in from the University of Chicago, Rush Medical College, Loyola University, Midwestern University, University of Illinois at Chicago and other local schools.
Within days, they recruited more than 500 volunteers for the COVID Rapid Response Team Chicago. A few days later, students had assembled a sprawling network to bridge the gap between the medical community and much-needed resources.
“There were very strong, but independent movements between each school,” said third-year RFU medical student Matthew Christensen, who is part of the group’s leadership team. Besides providing protective gear, he said the effort is about “helping health care workers just on the human side of things. When you’re working such long hours, there’s a lot of day-to-day activity that goes neglected, like grocery shopping or child care.”
The coalition not only includes medical students, but also future nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists and students in other health care fields. Together, they are uniquely situated, with health care expertise, industry connections and an understanding of what needs are most urgent.
Still, the leadership team was stunned by the flood of responses from volunteers. With so many eager to help,
“These are niches we can fill because of our clinical rotation (experience).” —Ayman Elmasri, third-year med student
the group snapped into action, with offshoots focused on a growing range of efforts, Christensen said. Even without interacting with patients, they can make a difference, he said.
The Rapid Response Team has coordinated with Red Cross and public health and emergency management officials to supplement their work. They’ve also just teamed up with Julian Baumgartner, a fine art conservationist based in Chicago, to distribute N95 masks he’s purchasing through a GoFundMe campaign that Friday had exceeded $50,000 in donations.
As it works to build a website, the group uses Twitter to connect with Chicagoans who might be able to aid in its efforts. From there, people can coordinate protective gear donations and get more information on how they can help.
Meanwhile, about 80 more third-year medical students at Northwestern are drawing on their clinical experience to spread word about the severe shortage of blood supply and ask healthy Chicagoans to donate.
They’ve created an extensive guide with information on how to do it safely.
“Blood transfusions can literally have a life-or-death impact on patients,” said third-year med student Ayman Elmasri. “And just like we’re nationally having this discussion about allocation of ventilators, we’re trying really hard to not have to have that conversation when it comes to the availability of blood.”
The students are also working with Northwestern doctors to complete discharge paperwork and will start providing wellness checks and screenings through telehealth systems and with doctor supervision — both measures that could save hours of time for physicians on the front lines.
“These are niches we can fill because of our clinical rotation (experience),” Elmasri said. “… To even help those folks a little bit, I think it brings a lot of joy to any third-year medical student.”
Pendergrast is helping with efforts to track down PPE, in quantities large and small, and funnel them to health care providers who need them most. Research labs, retired construction workers, veterinary technicians and Northwestern’s wood shop have all offered their gear, as have retired health care workers who might just have a spare box of gloves or a handful of masks squirreled away.
“If five people each give us 10 masks, that’s 50 reduced transmissions,” Pendergrast said. “We’re of the mindset that we’re not leaving any stone unturned.”