The United States is going to need every doctor and nurse it can find to battle coronavirus—but coronavirus itself is endangering that. In Boston alone, more than 160 hospital workers have tested positive. We’re going to need more medical professionals, and fast. Medical schools are looking at one possible response: early graduation.
“We are aware that nearly every school is considering early graduation as an option in our continued response to the pandemic,” Dr. Alison Whelan, chief medical education officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, told CNN.
The AAMC is working with several schools on developing an early graduation option, while NYU has already announced one.
“We've been working with the deans of the medical schools in Massachusetts to graduate students early,” the state’s health and human services secretary said Thursday.
These students will be graduating directly into a pandemic, in which the expected course of their careers will be upended in more ways than just graduating early, many will get sick, and some will die. It’s staggering what this has come to.