Medical Students Working on Frontlines
Future doctors help fight the coronavirus epidemic.
The Russian Health Ministry and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education enlisted the help of senior medical students in fighting the pandemic. Starting from May 1, students have been having practice at hospitals which treat COVID-19 patients. Health authorities plan to rally more than 40,000 future doctors.
Many students of medical universities jointed the coronavirus fight on their own accord without waiting for the order. More than 1,000 Sechenov University students, residents and postgraduates are currently fighting coronavirus. Some work as primary care physicians providing assistance to the sick at home and receiving outpatients. Other Sechenov University students work at university clinics converted to COVID-19 hospitals and at the Kommunarka centre. “Hospitals are now in the thick of things,” said Asanet Alvrtsyan, a 4-year student who helps fight the epidemic in a clinic. “Medics have all protective gear they need.”
In April, 347 students, eight postgraduates and 107 residents from People’s Friendship University of Russia worked at Moscow hospitals. The RUDN taskforce includes international students. Prabal Pradhan from Nepal, a RUDN resident and future traumatologist/orthopedist, helps doctors at the RUDN Clinical and Diagnostics Centre and also visits sick students who stayed back in dormitories. Prabal said that he did 12-hour shifts starting at eight in the morning. RUDN resident Mengistu Elias Mesfin works at an intensive care unit of Moscow Clinical Hospital No 1. He helps stabilise patients with coronavirus disease.
Alwadi Muhammed Ahmad (Germany) is on a residency programme in surgery at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. He works at an infection disease hospital in Kaliningrad. Alvadi acknowledges that he is getting unique experience although he had already had practice in hospitals of Italy and Germany. Overall, 39 IKBFU residents help fight the epidemic.
Fifteen volunteers from Far Eastern Federal University’s School of Biomedicine work at outpatient hospitals and medical centres of Vladivostok. They help examine patients with suspected COVID-19, sanitise critical spaces and do paperwork.
As a rule, students are not paid for medical practice, but all those who work with COVID-19 patients, are entitled to remuneration.
