Medical students find new ways to care while training is on hold Pictured top to bottom: Kate Morrison, Hanna Dunnigan, Jessica Froehlich By Greg Basky When the COVID-19 pandemic brought their clinical and classroom training to a halt in mid-March, students in the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine wasted no time offering their support to the health-care system. With help from the Student Medical Society of Saskatchewan, individuals and small teams identified needs and organized a variety of different projects in response: •
Public Health: Early on, some medical students helped staff the public health phone lines, doing contact tracing, daily check-in calls with people who tested positive, and advising others that their test results had come back negative.
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PPE Collection: Students gathered personal protective equipment from local businesses and individuals for donation to Saskatoon hospitals. They were motivated to act by reports of local shortages and the potential risk this posed to patients and care providers.
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Students Helping Health Care Providers: To lighten the load for physicians who were logging long hours in ICU or emergency in the pandemic’s early days, some students stepped forward to help out by running errands or providing child care.
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Student Senior Isolation Prevention Partnership: Medical students here launched a Saskatchewan chapter of this program, which started at the University of Toronto. Isolated seniors living on their own or in long-term care are paired with a student partner for weekly telephone calls, for social contact and to answer questions.
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Support for La Loche: When an outbreak of the coronavirus hit La Loche, Dr. Kendra Morrow wanted to do something to help. With some administrative support from the SMA, medical students leapt into action, launching a GoFundMe campaign that blew past its original target, then shopping for household supplies, toiletries, and crafts and games, to make life a little easier for residents of the northern community.
SMA DIGEST | FALL 2020
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