Skip to main content

New story in Health from Time: NYU Med School Will Graduate Students Early to Help New York Fight Coronavirus



As COVID-19 continues to slam New York City hospitals, New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine this week took the dramatic step of letting its graduating class depart early to join the response effort.

New York City has rapidly become a hotspot for COVID-19, with more than 15,000 of the world’s roughly 440,000 cases as of the morning of March 25. Doctors and nurses have been working around the clock to care for the surge of patients, canceling elective procedures and non-urgent appointments to free up bed space, protective supplies and staffing for acutely ill patients.

NYU’s action aims to add more physicians to the ranks.

“In response to the growing spread of COVID-19, and in response to Governor Cuomo’s directive to get more physicians into the health system more quickly, NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU have agreed to permit early graduation for its medical students,” an NYU spokesperson confirmed to TIME. The decision is subject to approval by the New York State Department of Education, Middle States and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

According to an email circulating on Twitter, the option is available to students in NYU’s class of 2020 who have met all graduation requirements and volunteer to work in the NYU hospital system’s internal or emergency medicine departments beginning in April.

NYU’s decision is just one example of COVID-19’s shakeup to medical education. “Match Day,” when graduating medical students learn where they will complete their residency training, is typically a ceremonious occasion, when classes gather to announce their matches. But this year, with most mass gatherings canceled due to the outbreak, Match Day was a remote affair for students like John Damianos, who learned by email, surrounded by family at home, that he will leave Dartmouth University’s Geisel School of Medicine to start an internal medicine residency at Yale University this summer.

“Many people are more excited about Match Day than even graduation,” Damianos says. “It was not the Match Day we expected, but we all understood the important need for canceling it.”

Now, Damianos and his colleagues are readying themselves to potentially enter the workforce earlier than expected, and under highly uncertain conditions. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center has leaned on medical students to carry out a number of support roles during the pandemic, and hospitals around the country have done likewise. Health care students in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, for example, have developed a childcare network for workers on the front lines.

Damianos, at least, says he’s ready to jump into patient care whenever the call comes.

“This is why I went into medicine: to help people, to serve as an advocate for public health,” he says. “This is it. This is the time to rise to the calling.”

Popular posts from this blog

New story in Health from Time: 3 More People Diagnosed With Coronavirus in Northern California

Three more people in Northern California have been diagnosed with the coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV, health officials in the area said Sunday, doubling the number of cases in the state and bringing the total across the country to 11 . The patients, whose symptoms are not yet serious enough to warrant hospitalization, are being kept in their homes, where they are being closely monitored, the San Francisco Chronicle reports . Two of the patients are a husband and wife from San Benito County. The husband fell ill after he returned home from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. It is believed he transferred the virus to his wife, who had not been to China. The other patient became sick while visiting family in Santa Clara County. She also previously visited Wuhan. Since arriving in the United States on Jan. 23, she has only left her home twice to seek out medical assistance. Officials from both counties said they are working to identify anyone who may have come into cont...

New video by blogilates on YouTube

Day 8 - 14 | Blogilates 2020 Challenge You guys are CRUSHING the #2020Challenge so far! Idk about you but my abs are soooooore! This week, we're doing 20 reps of abs every day + 20 reps of another new exercise every day! If you need a little extra motivation, text my number (510-692-4556) and tell me all about it so we can come up with a solution together! This link also works: https://ift.tt/2Qjqw7G This week's moves are: Jan. 8th (starts 0:48) - 20 butterfly bridges + 20 criss cross (butt + abs) Jan. 9th (starts 2:43) - 20 oil riggers + 20 rollovers (arms + abs) Jan. 10th (starts 8:29) - 20 lunges + 20 leg outs (legs + abs) Jan. 11th (starts 11:03) - 20 walnut crushers + 20 single leg drops (back + abs) Jan. 12th (starts 13:41) - 20 sprinters + 20 crunches (obliques + abs) Jan. 13th (starts 16:27) - 20 squat jumps + 20 russian twists (cardio + abs) Jan. 14th (starts 18:57) - 20 plank jacks + 20 butt ups (total body + abs) Here is where I get all of my music! Epidemic Sound: ...

New story in Health from Time: Coronavirus Cases Outside China Are Accelerating Rapidly. Here’s What to Know

A surge in deadly coronavirus cases outside China is raising concerns that the outbreak has reached a new stage and could continue its global spread to even more vulnerable countries. In the central Chinese province of Hubei, where the virus is believed to have originated, the number of cases appears to be stabilizing, according to government figures. But the number of people infected elsewhere in the world is rising quickly, with clusters in South Korea , Italy, Iran and a cruise ship docked in Japan. As of Monday, more than 2,200 cases of the virus, officially called COVID-19, have been reported outside of mainland China, where the overwhelming majority of the 79,000 cases have been located since officials first discovered the disease in December. The number of deaths outside China has also increased to 166, including 50 in Iran and four in Italy. In a news conference Monday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO...