Health Professions Accelerating Training for the Pandemic

Jonathan Whatley · Mar 26, 2020

Justin Zadorsky said:

It was just two weeks ago that Fanshawe [College]'s Respiratory Therapy students were still completing their course work, now they're being called into the thick of the COVID-19 response.

The program, along with the College of Respiratory Therapists of Ontario [the regulatory licensing body], has cleared those in their final year of the program to being working immediately during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I have been in this profession for more than 20 years and have never seen this happen, not even during SARS," said Julie Brown, coordinator of the Respiratory Therapy program in a release.

The students are four weeks away from completing the program and have all done 36 to 40 weeks of clinical hospital and community placements.

There is a shortage of respiratory therapists during this time, with only about 3,000 in Ontario.

They are in high demand as they are assist patients with breathing through oxygen and/or intubation and ventilation.

The students will complete their course work online while working during the pandemic.
Click to expand...

From classrooms to the front line: Fanshawe students to work directly with COVID-19 patients (Justin Zadorsky, CTV News London, Ontario, Canada, March 26, 2020)

Kizmet · Mar 26, 2020

Here's an interview with a medical student who is graduating early to go to work as an intern. I found her to be well spoken and clearly dedicated to helping

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/medical-students-called-into-service-early-to-help-in-covid-fight-81224261573

Jonathan Whatley · Mar 27, 2020

UMass Medical School Communications said:

Stating that “Graduating medical students are ready: let’s get them to work,” Chancellor Michael F. Collins announced that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has approved a bold and unprecedented initiative to accelerate the graduation of UMass Medical School’s fourth-year School of Medicine students […] The other three medical schools in Massachusetts—Tufts, Boston University and Harvard—joined UMMS in this effort, which was announced today by Gov. Charlie Baker and Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders. […]

[Said Collins,] “While this is voluntary for members of our graduating class, in Massachusetts alone, accelerating the graduation of students at all four medical schools could infuse our health care delivery system with more than 700 new physician caregivers.” […]

[Said UMMS provost and medical dean Terence R. Flotte,] “While in a typical year our graduating students’ tenure as resident physicians would begin July 1, we applaud all who have come together—our state’s political and public health leaders, medical schools, and licensing and regulatory bodies—to provide medical students with the opportunity to put their ability and enthusiasm to work now, where they are needed most. These students are well-educated, prepared, care deeply about their community and, with appropriate supervision, are eager to join the front lines of patient care.”

“We have no doubt our medical students are up to the task,” said Collins. “In recent weeks, they have mobilized volunteer efforts to bring in donations of protective equipment from research labs, assisted medical center employee health with telephone triage of exposures and provided other much-needed support to clinical staff on the front lines.”
Click to expand...

UMMS, Three Boston medical schools to accelerate graduation of class of 2020 (UMass Medical School Communications, March 26, 2020)

Jonathan Whatley · Mar 27, 2020

Patricia Kime said:

For the first time in its 48-year history, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences will graduate its fourth-year medical school students and graduate-level nurses early to support the U.S. military's war on COVID-19.

Roughly 170 medical students and 60 graduate nursing students will depart USUHS in Bethesda, Maryland, between April 1 and April 17, to support the Defense Department's coronavirus pandemic response.

The medical students, who are not yet licensed because they have not completed the required internships, will work under the supervision of licensed physicians in positions "appropriate within the limits of their duty stations," such as screening patients and taking health histories, USUHS President Dr. Richard Thomas said in an interview Thursday with Military.com.

The nurses -- all of whom have experience and will graduate with advanced degrees -- will proceed directly to their assigned duty stations.

"For COVID-19, there's a lot of extra work for people and it's a lot of extra duty for the typical staff," said Thomas, a retired Army major general and board certified otolaryngologist and surgeon. […]

"West Point [and] Annapolis during World War II, they early-graduated several classes in a row to make sure they had more officers going into the force. That's what we are doing here," Thomas said. "They are fully trained and they are at the tail-end of their time here, so we expedited a few things at the end of the year ... so they are available to their services ... and to the nation."

Thomas said the new graduates will be available for the Army, Navy, Air Force and U.S. Public Health Service surge to combat the coronavirus, which had sickened 82,404 people in the United States as of March 26.
Click to expand...

Military Medical School to Graduate Students Early, Rush to COVID-19 Response (Patricia Kime, Military.com, March 27, 2020)

Jonathan Whatley · Mar 27, 2020

Kevin McCoy and Katie Wedell said:

The respiratory care board of North Carolina, a state with about 5,000 licensed respiratory therapists, approved 50 respiratory therapy students to work as assistants in hospitals. It’s working on approvals for dozens more.

The board emailed 900 people with lapsed licenses this week to say they could get relicensed quickly. That generated a huge response, said William Croft, the board’s executive director.

“Even prior to this we were struggling to keep up with demand for therapists,” Croft said. One hospital had 20 openings for therapists before the coronavirus crisis.

North Carolina waived continuing education requirements, late renewal fees and many of the requirements to re-apply for a license. The board also made it easier to approve people who are licensed in other states. A process that normally takes weeks now takes two days.

Debra Marlowe answered the call.

The 61-year-old Wilmington, North Carolina, resident was already thinking about coming out of retirement to work part-time as a respiratory therapist before coronavirus started spreading. Then she received Croft’s email.

“Seemed like it was meant to be,” Marlowe said.
Click to expand...

'On-the-job emergency training': Hospitals may run low on staff to run ventilators for coronavirus patients (Kevin McCoy and Katie Wedell, USA TODAY, March 27, 2020)

Kizmet · Mar 30, 2020

a story from the SIU School of Medicine

https://www.newspressnow.com/news/national/covid--brings-changes-to-siu-med-school-and-clinics/article_11ac22a1-c21f-5781-a20c-13cd3f0dc055.html

LearningAddict · Mar 30, 2020

It's the right thing to do. After all, if you're that far into your medical education you're either capable or you probably weren't going to last long post-graduation anyway. Knowing that many medical professionals (particularly Doctors) are often overworked, it makes me think about how this current crisis may have already had more ready-professionals to fight it if some of the more contentious barriers to entry had been eliminated and more Doctors had been hired before all of this.

I wish for this to become a teachable moment for the gatekeepers of the profession but knowing how old habits die hard, I expect things to go back to the old status quo once this is over leaving us unprepared for the next pandemic.

Jonathan Whatley · Apr 2, 2020

Shree Paradkar said:

Around the country, foreign-trained doctors and nurses and other health-care professionals, many with expertise in epidemiology, practise in resource-scare situations and experience in the Canadian health-care system, are petitioning provincial governments, offering their services and waiting to be able to contribute in the nation’s hour of need. […]

Meanwhile, the demand is increasing. Retired doctors are coming back to work.

On Tuesday, the Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket put out a call for volunteer doctors for its critical care unit. “No advance training is required,” the email from the medical staff association president and chief of staff said. Volunteers would be under supervision of a critical care specialist. […]

The [Ontario Medical Association] said it supports the [regulatory licensing body, the] College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s recent measures to allow physicians who haven’t trained in Ontario to apply for an “expedited short-term supervised licence to practise medicine” in the province. It’s not clear if these measures apply to foreign-trained doctors.

British Columbia went a step further Wednesday when its College of Physicians and Surgeons proposed a change in its bylaws to allow international medical graduates to apply for a restricted licence “as associate physicians under the direction and supervision of attending physicians in acute care settings.”
Click to expand...

‘We’re here, we’re ready.’ Thousands of foreign-trained doctors, nurses eager to help in the COVID-19 crisis. Why isn’t Canada acting? (Shree Paradkar, The Toronto Star, April 1, 2020)

Jonathan Whatley · Apr 4, 2020

Nicole Brockbank said:

International medical graduates who've passed their exams to practise in Canada, or have graduated from school in the past two years, can now apply for a supervised 30-day medical licence in Ontario to help fight COVID-19.

The short-term licence, called a Supervised Short Duration Certificate, allows some foreign-trained physicians and domestic medical school graduates to practise under supervision at public hospitals, psychiatric facilities and Crown agencies.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) began issuing the certificates last month — without an announcement — by triggering a provision in existing provincial legislation. […]

In Ontario, there are 13,000 foreign-educated doctors and 6,000 foreign-educated nurses who aren't working in their fields, according to numbers from HealthForceOntario that [Ontario Liberal leader Steven] Del Duca cited in a letter to Premier [Doug] Ford this week. […]

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order to allow foreign medical school graduates who aren't licensed to practise in the U.S. to provide patient care in hospitals, as long as they've completed one year of graduate medical education.
Click to expand...

Some internationally trained doctors can apply for 30-day Ontario licence to fight COVID-19 (Nicole Brockbank, CBC News, Apil 3, 2020)

Log in or Sign up

Health Professions Accelerating Training for the Pandemic

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Kizmet Moderator

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Kizmet Moderator

LearningAddict Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Health Professions Accelerating Training for the Pandemic

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Kizmet Moderator

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Kizmet Moderator

LearningAddict Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches