On Friday, March 13, my medical school canceled our classes.

I remember looking at the screen for a full minute, then searching for a loophole can we volunteer in the clinics? before concluding there wasnt one. As a third-year medical student, everything seemed to have fallen away Step 2 CS, away rotations, a planned infectious disease rotation in Thailand with nothing in its place. Nothing can be frightening, but it can also be an opportunity.

During medical school, I have become increasingly aware of how childcare needs put pressure on parents especially women in medicine. I have seen my peers struggle to balance didactic or clinical responsibilities with the needs of their families, and thats just with the usual demands of training. In a pandemic, with multiple school and day care closures, its completely unworkable.

Working with other medical students at Oregon Health & Science University, and with others all across the country, we have developed an initiative designed to match students with health care workers in a longitudinal one-to-one relationship to adhere to social distancing guidelines and provide necessary services such as childcare, petsitting, and errands. The initiative is still growing and changing into its final form, and its too early to say what that will be, but it has already helped our health care workers feel supported and made our community stronger.

Here are a few tips for anyone who would like to develop a similar initiative at their institution:

Image credit: hold | cancel (CC BY-NC 2.0)bywootam

Contributing Writer

Oregon Health & Science University

Emily is a third year medical student at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon class of 2021. In 2015, she graduated from Reed College with a Bachelor of Arts in biology-psychology. She enjoys hiking, gardening, and experimenting with food preservation techniques in her free time. After graduating medical school, Emily would like to pursue a career in developmental and behavioral pediatrics.

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Medical Student Organizing in the Time of COVID-19 - Pager Publications, Inc.