How have you guys felt since this whole pandemic began?

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Brooklyn-doc97

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So out of curiosity how hectic and difficult was med school for you during this pandemic? Whether you're in the first 2 or later 2 of your years of med schools. Do you guy's mind telling me what it was like for you? I am currently a premed student and was wondering what med school is like, with every crazy thing going on. I mean burn out in the medical community was already pretty bad prior to the pandemic, but now it seems like it's just a mess.

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I was in residency when it hit and it was hectic for me, they were talking about draft orders if/when the ER and ICU docs get sick. Luckily since we were psychiatrist we were low on that draft, but our hospital decided to be the states source of online covid evals and residents got "volunteered" for these extra shifts at a crappy rate.
 
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I wonder a lot of the time if M1 and M2 would've been more enjoyable had we not been in quarantine. I'm well-aware that mandatory in-person lectures aren't the best lol, but maybe the social scene at my program would've been better without the need to stay safe. Just fortunate I have classmates and friends I can trust
 
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I was just starting M3 when the first quarantine started. We took a couple weeks off while the program instituted safety measures, but then it was back to business as usual. I honestly think I only benefited, because I still got to do all my rotations in person, but all the didactics were virtual.
 
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Was in M2 when first quarantine hit. All in person stuff canceled. Had labs virtually. Anatomy lab was canceled and replaced with one or two prosection sessions per block. All our school events were canceled or made virtual, including white coat and dining out (we do white coat between M1 and M2, and ours was postponed and then made virtual).

Our third year schedules were made business as usual and then thrown in the trash and we were just given random schedules. We also lost an elective we normally get in M3. There were also quarantine rules and virtual distance courses we had to take during the quarantine periods, and we started our M3 year about a month late because the class ahead of us had a month during their M3 year where they were pulled out of the hospital. Other than that, our third year was pretty similar to normal third years—aside from taking care of lots of covid patients.
 
I was in residency when it hit and it was hectic for me, they were talking about draft orders if/when the ER and ICU docs get sick. Luckily since we were psychiatrist we were low on that draft, but our hospital decided to be the states source of online covid evals and residents got "volunteered" for these extra shifts at a crappy rate.
Thank you for sharing
 
The widespread burn out in medicine is some of the worse I've seen since in my medical career over the past decade. It feels like there's no end in sight with ICUs that hover at near constant capacity. Staff are physically tired and mentally checked out, which is only compounded by staff shortages that have accelerated over the last year.

At our institution right now, COVID numbers are about the same as last year. But this time, the patients are sicker and staying longer, leaving little room for a pop-off in the system. We can no longer accept patients from out-of-state as the regional tertiary medical center. We're still able to do surgery, so long as it doesn't require an ICU bed or gets approval from the chief of surgery beforehand.

As for medical students, all rotations at are hospital were cancelled last year but have resumed for mainly non-surgical fields. We used to have one 3rd/4th medical student per quarter interested in CT surgery rotate with us. But that's on indefinite hold until the situation improves. I believe the med students are mostly doing their surgical rotations at the university hospital now.
 
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The widespread burn out in medicine is some of the worse I've seen since in my medical career over the past decade. It feels like there's no end in sight with ICUs that hover at near constant capacity. Staff are physically tired and mentally checked out, which is only compounded by staff shortages that have accelerated over the last year.

At our institution right now, COVID numbers are about the same as last year. But this time, the patients are sicker and staying longer, leaving little room for a pop-off in the system. We can no longer accept patients from out-of-state as the regional tertiary medical center. We're still able to do surgery, so long as it doesn't require an ICU bed or gets approval from the chief of surgery beforehand.

As for medical students, all rotations at are hospital were cancelled last year but have resumed for mainly non-surgical fields. We used to have one 3rd/4th medical student per quarter interested in CT surgery rotate with us. But that's on indefinite hold until the situation improves. I believe the med students are mostly doing their surgical rotations at the university hospital now.
Wow. Does this mean your tertiary center is still not doing any heart valves or craniotomies? Or do you just request a lot of exceptions from the chief of surgery?

We had a soft hold on ICU-level surgeries early in the pandemic (similar situation, had to clear with chief of surgery) but that was lifted a long time ago. Plus exceptions were always made for emergencies.
 
Wow. Does this mean your tertiary center is still not doing any heart valves or craniotomies? Or do you just request a lot of exceptions from the chief of surgery?

We had a soft hold on ICU-level surgeries early in the pandemic (similar situation, had to clear with chief of surgery) but that was lifted a long time ago. Plus exceptions were always made for emergencies.
Soft hold is a good way to describe it. We can do CABGs/valves/esophagectomies, which are our typical ICU cases. But it's usually limited to 1-2 per day and there are daily meetings to review cases needing ICU admission and the current census. It's not uncommon to have to reschedule cases (usually not more than once thankfully) if beds are particularly tight.

One of our sister hospitals is essentially always at capacity and the CT guys there are lucky to operate 2-3 days per week. It's a mess.

We still get emergencies done and somehow are able to materialize an ICU bed when needed. But there's always patients with COVID waiting in the ED for ICU admission.
 
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When COVID was just starting to make in roads into the U.S., my wife and I were just moving from Arizona back to my home state of Texas. My dad was in California visiting with my baby sister and while out there, he later got very sick with what we think was COVID (he had several of the hallmark symptoms of COVID but this was before there was a definitive test so we can't say with 100% certainty that it was the virus). Soon after we arrived in Texas, I guess five or six weeks, the state instituted its lock down. The last time I saw any family or friends was late January.

I started studying for the MCAT and preparing to apply to medical school while we were on lock down. I was also finishing my PhD during this time. The University of Missouri went on lockdown so I wasn't able to some key things face-to-face the way that I had hoped (i.e., comp exams, dissertation research, dissertation defense, and graduation) but my wife and I were more than willing to do what we had to do to stay safe and keep the people around us safe. I finally finished the PhD and had a successful medical school admissions cycle. Though. my wife and I lost a few friends to COVID, we were (and still are) fortunate to not lose any family. Throughout this whole time, we had good mental health or so we. thought.

I started medical school two weeks after I defended my dissertation, on July 12th. As you might imagine, everything has been face-to-face but we've been wearing N95s while on campus (class activities, in the library for studying, etc.) We've also had to undergo weekly COVID tests early on and in our first block, we had a significant COVID cluster so we had to move to online learning for a little over a week. The part of San Antonio that my medical school is located in is also one of the hardest hit zip in all of Texas so there is a fear, even though my wife and I are vaccinated and still mask up and socially distance as much as possible, of contracting COVID.

The worst part about all of this has been the arguments over the origins of COVID, vaccination, whose fault this is, etc. I have had a LOT Of arguments with family, mainly younger cousins who have a mistrust of anything government or older relatives who have the memories of the Tuskegee studies deeply embedded into they DNA. There have also been disagreements with classmates and faculty at my medical school who don't believe in mask wearing or vaccines. Then there have been the random idiots who have tried to pick fights because my wife and I choose to wear masks; there was a guy at our gym who used a racial slur at us on the way out because we were our masks while working out.

I came to a realization a few weeks back that the over year long home confinement, the fears that I've had over COVID, and all of the political/personal strife surrounding COVID has taken a toll on me that I hadn't been aware of. I was already burned out going into medical school (i.e., I'd just finished my dissertation and PhD) and dealing with all of this COVID uncertainty (for example, at my school, we're all required to be EMT certified so that we can start doing early clinical activities; my first clinical activity is supposed to be on 26-Dec but the agency could cancel due to COVID numbers) on top of. being a medical student has put me in a space where my mental health isn't what it was in 2019 and early 2020. Recently, I've decided to take a medical leave of absence to get my eyes taken care of (I have Kerataconus and need a new type of contact lens and it takes 3-6 months to get a good fit) and I'm going to use this time to also see a therapist. It feels like COVID is going to be with us for the long haul and while I don't know how its going to affect the rest of my medical education, its clear that there will be some kind of influence on it related to COVID. I want to make Sure that I am in a good place mentally to keep going.
 
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