Students Help Health Department Assess Preparedness During COVID-19

Two of Northeast Ohio Medical University’s newly minted physicians spent their last days as medicine students working with the Canton City Health Department to assess COVID-19 preparedness, issues and concerns.

Sarah Richards, M.D. (’20), and Robert Becker, M.D. (’20), reflect on their recent COVID-19 elective.

Throughout the course of this project, we created a survey to administer to long-term care, dialysis and nursing facilities throughout the City of Canton. The survey was extrapolated from the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Preparedness Checklist for Nursing Homes and other long-term care settings developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The main goal of our survey was for the Canton City Health Department (CCHD) to gain situational awareness of the facilities in their jurisdiction. In developing the survey, we wanted to ask questions that would tell us how these facilities were preparing for COVID-19, what critical supplies they needed, and in what areas they needed more guidance.

While administering the survey, we provided information and answered questions to the best of our abilities. We reached out on behalf of the facilities to the CCHD to request more supplies and to get answers to their questions about the recommended way to approach this pandemic. We developed follow-up materials to send to our survey contacts once the survey was completed.

We have been removed from the clinical environment, and it has been hard standing by while the health care system is profoundly struggling, so this was a rewarding experience. It provided an outlet to help in a situation where as medicine students we were feeling helpless.

Participating in this project gave us the opportunity to help protect patients who are at very high risk of both contracting COVID-19 and developing serious outcomes from the disease. It was also moving to serve as a lifeline to the health care workers in these facilities.

It was evident while speaking with these people that they are doing everything they can to protect their patients and employees. At times, we shared in their stress and frustration as they expressed the difficulties of this process and the hardships they were facing. We felt fortunate to be able to provide even a small amount of help and relief during this difficult time.