Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Some Medical Students Celebrate With Covid Vaccine Selfies as Others Wait in Line

Across states and schools, medical students’ access to the coronavirus vaccine has varied widely, creating some confusion and stress.

Vaccinations earlier this month at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Odessa.Credit...Jacob Ford/Odessa American, via Associated Press

In early January, Nali Gillespie watched her social media feeds fill with vaccine selfies: Photo after photo of her peers at other medical schools around the country posed proudly next to a syringe with their dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

But Ms. Gillespie — who is in her third year at Duke University School of Medicine and is focused on research rather than clinical training — knew she wouldn’t be able to join them yet.

Because she volunteers in an outpatient clinic just once a week, she has less direct exposure to Covid patients and is waiting in line behind classmates who are working in intensive care units and emergency rooms.

“You hear that at some schools, students are already getting their second dose, and then there’s some of us who haven’t even been scheduled for our first,” Ms. Gillespie said.

When she goes in for her weekly clinic shifts, she knows she is still vulnerable to exposure to the coronavirus. “You’re increasingly aware that an asymptomatic patient can come into the clinic and you’re seeing them in a small exam room,” she said. “The risk is very real.”

In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced guidelines establishing priorities of who should get the vaccines first as the rollout began. Although the guidelines were broad, medical students learned that they could be included among the first wave of health care workers, especially those involved with care of Covid patients. But the rollout has varied widely across the country’s 155 medical schools, which have each set priorities based on the availability of vaccine doses in their state.

This has caused stress for some medical students continuing their clinical rotations. Although some schools bar students from treating Covid patients, that rule can be difficult to enforce, especially with asymptomatic cases.

At some institutions, like Duke School of Medicine, students working in intensive care units and emergency departments were placed in the highest level priority group, 1A, while all others were told they would be vaccinated under group 1B. At Yale School of Medicine, all medical students, regardless of their level of patient exposure, were told they would be vaccinated in reverse alphabetical order (“by the first letter of their last name, starting at the end of the alphabet”).

“Those who were at the later stages of the alphabet were happy but a bit confused as to how arbitrary it was,” said Sumun Khetpal, a fourth-year student.

Students at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Worth said that for weeks they had received no communication from the school about when they would receive their vaccines, so some drove hours across the state looking for private pharmacists who would give them shots. And at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, students said they also had to “take matters into their own hands,” and reach out to private pharmacies to inquire about getting vaccinated because until last weekend, they were not told how to receive vaccines from their school.

“The C.D.C. guidelines did not have the level of granularity needed for hospitals and schools to make decisions,” said Dr. Alison Whelan, chief academic officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges. “There’s been a fair amount of variability because of the lack of a national plan.”

Adding to the confusion, the vaccines were allocated to states according to their populations, which do not always reflect their populations of health care workers, added Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief health care officer of the association. There are 21,000 med students in the country.

For some of them, there’s a sense of guilty relief as they receive the vaccine knowing some of their peers still have not.

“One of my close friends is a dental student and is in people’s mouths on a regular basis, but she hasn’t received the Covid vaccine,” said Azan Virji, a second-year medical student at Harvard who got his first dose in late December. “It feels like there’s a disparity.”

Still, Mr. Virji said he has treated Covid-19 patients many times and felt a weight lifted knowing he is now inoculated.

“My parents in Tanzania may not have access to this vaccine until 2022, and now I’m one of the first people to have access to it,” he said. “It’s bittersweet, but essential for me to feel calmer in the hospital.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Some Medical Students Celebrate With Vaccine Selfies as Others Await Access. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT