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Letter: Medical students are stuck in limbo

(Trent Nelson | Tribune file photo) Negative pressure tents have been set up outside University of Utah Hospital in preparation for COVID-19 cases, in Salt Lake City on Monday, March 9, 2020.

One of the best jokes I have heard over this last week, when everyone I know is looking for some relief in this time of chaos, was that while most of society is buckling down to work from home and isolate themselves, health care providers are snapping gloves on and yelling, “We ride at midnight!”

While this is clearly a bit of a hyperbole, it made me chuckle, because that’s exactly what I’ve been observing.

The University of Utah School of Medicine is not only closely aligned with the University of Utah Hospital, headquarters for the entire state’s response and treatment of COVID-19, it is literally connected through one long hallway. We walk through the lobby of the hospital every single day, and the change in attitude and seriousness there is palpable.

As days have passed, our lives as students have become more and more uncertain. There is, and likely will always be, a distinction between the undergraduate experience and that of students in professional school. This has never been more clear than when our university president announced the cancellation of classes for two days and a total shift to online curriculum for the rest of our semester.

And yet, our classes were not canceled, and not all of our curriculum is going online.

As pre-professionals, medical students have always lived in a limbo of sorts. We may know more about public health, epidemiology, virology and physical exams than the average citizen, but we know far less than physicians and nurses working on the floors and on the front line. We have instincts to jump in and help, but are told that we are nonessential and that our exposure to disease is not worth the risk.

Never before have I seen so clearly the unique space we inhabit. I am simultaneously being told that I cannot serve shifts at the free clinics I love, providing care to the uninsured who are rightfully more scared now than usual, but also that I will need to go to campus weekly for clinical skills training, as this is too critical to skip, postpone or digitize.

Which is it? Am I a health care professional, putting the needs of the public above my own? Or am I a student, taking aggressive precautions and staying home to flatten the curve?

While the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed my view of our profession, it has changed my mindset. More than ever before, I want to be out there, snapping on my gloves, getting ready to ride at midnight.

Kaitlin McLean, first-year medical student, University of Utah

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