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Medical students help out in community and collect over 25,000 pieces of PPE equipment
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Medical Students Jaspal Bassi and Jessica Sea collect PPE during community drive.
As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread and inundates doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, a group of UCI School of Medicine students have taken on extraordinary volunteer roles to support their teachers and mentors at UCI Health. | Pictured: First year medical students Justin So & Harrison Lam, Also pictured are Tara Kasmarek, Clinical Support Services and Brad Giafaglione, Patient Experience. | First year medical students Justin So and Harrison Lam played music in the lobby of the Douglas Hospital to help the spirits of staff and patients. The response was so positive that next week they have plans to play on patient floor lobbies.
Third year medical student Justine Chinn and first year medical student Austin Franklin have organized more than 100 of their fellow classmates to provide childcare, grocery shopping, and pet sitting for UCI Health doctors, nurses and staff. UCI Health employees simply fill out a Google spreadsheet expressing their need and then are matched with a student volunteer. Both Justine Chinn and Austin Franklin were chosen as KNX's Hero of the Week.To listen to their interview, click here.
| Emily Tom, first year medical student walks a dog for a UCI clinician. | The students have also been hosting community drives to secure additional personal protective equipment (PPE) to prevent a shortage at UCI Medical Center. First year medical student Jaspal Bassi organized the drives with classmates and is being supported by 40 volunteers. So far, the group has collected thousands of surgical masks and N95s, hundreds of goggles, disposable gowns, face shields and boxes of gloves, packages of disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizers.
As of April 9, 2020, they have collected: - 50 handmade masks
- 2800 n95 respirators
- 20,500 surgical masks
- 930 boxes of gloves
- 119 face shields
- 642 goggles
- 300 disposable gowns
“While hospitals across the nation are experiencing shortages of PPE, we organized multiple community drives to collect protective gear to prevent this from happening at UCI Health,” said first-year medical student Jaspal Bassi. “The first week of the drives were so successful that we plan to hold them every Saturday in April from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the parking lot of the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute on the UCI School of Medicine campus.
“Our days are getting longer and the future is uncertain,” said Megan Osborn, MD, the associate dean of education at the School of Medicine and an emergency room doctor at UCI Health. “The time these students are volunteering to help healthcare workers at home and at the hospital is such a tremendous help."
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