Citation

Wightman JM. Mil. Med. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States)

DOI

10.1093/milmed/usab182

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this month's issue of Military Medicine, Winakor, Janatpour, and West have commented on the ill-defined roles of medical students in disaster response. The authors ask how medical students can effectively serve in disaster-relief efforts generally and the ongoing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic specifically. They suggest that medical students should be allowed to volunteer after appropriate education and pre-deployment training.

Frustrating aspiring physicians' desires to contribute to a resource-limited response with whatever skills they may possess has the potential for detrimental mental-health effects. On the other hand, not all medical students will want to participate in disaster response, while others should not for a variety of reasons. Decisions must be personalized and decision-making shared between the individual, the institution, and the affected community. Benefits and risks must be assessed by each.

For the individual, a commentary published in the Wisconsin Medical Journal at the beginning of the pandemic well outlined some essential considerations: "Fundamentally, a particular student's response to a 'call to duty' is a combination of their sense of professional obligation, moral agency, ability to tolerate moral ambiguity, level of emotional resilience, and maturity of their professional identity."1 These would apply to any emergency or disaster response...

Language: en