Study Result- Willingness of Final Year MBBS Students to join the Covid 19 Workforce
Opinions of 2750 Indian Students. The results are quite intriguing.
So, earlier this year i ventured out into the realm of online survery based research and sent out a questionnaire to final year MBBS students from across India to understand their opinions on this dilemma they might soon have to face. I recieved an overwhelming response- 2750 Final year students voiced their opinons. At this point USA, UK and Italy had already allowed for early graduation for final year med students in their country. It was only a matter of time the Indian government would call for their help in this “All hands on deck” situation in our crippled healthcare system.
And here we are, with Mumbai begining to call on students and my research data sitting idle, i thought i might just self publish my data.
THE STUDY:
Online questionnaire based study, with variable question sets based on primary opinons and reasons for having those opinons. Sample size of 2750 final year students from 16 states and 52 medical colleges. Gender distribution was equal (50.1% Females and 49.9% males)
73.5% of the students were willing to graduate early for the pandemic effort with the most common primary reason (75.12%) being “The desire to contribute to the medical services” and the most common secondary reason (45.22%) was “to be able to accelate graduation in order to find more time for PG Exam preparations”. The attraction to monetary incentives overall(20.7%) was a far 3rd priority for students. There was no significant difference in the opinions of males and females.
Further more, 75.9% of final year students believed that they were competent enough to enter internship at this point; the main reason being their “ Ability to understand and deploy protocol” (50.34%) as is what is required from interns at this stage.
Out of the 26.5% of final year students who were unwilling to join in, the feeling of “Incomplete Medical Knowledge” was the most over arching reason at 79.8%. Unsafe working conditions was another significant conern in this regard with 14.8% students stating it as their primary reason.
On asking those unwilling to join, what they would do if the government declared a compulsory recruitment for final year medical students- 74.4% of them stated that they would, under those circumstances, join in but would not if given a choice.
On asking those willing to join, if a compulsory recruitment strategy by the government would be justified, 69.5% of the students replied affirmatively with the primary reason being the fact that “They are the only ones who can be trained with needed protocols in a short timeframe” to alleviate the healthcare worker crisis. The rationale based on moral responsibility featured as the opinion of 28.6% of the people.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSIONS:
With the ongoing crisis, It is inevitable our hospitals will be starved for man power and liberal duty hour policies.
With the impending “lifting” of the lock down, we can expect the usualy non covid patient flow to pick up in government hospitals. This will eventually lead to shunted speciality doctors to be sent back to their specalities, leaving a vast gap in the covid rota.
Here is where the recruitment of final year students becomes crucial. While interns will be promoted to house-man jobs with more responsibility, medical students will most likely be swapped in to replace the interns in duties that are mainly administrative but require a basic level of medical and protocol comprehension.
Another interesting finding in my opinon is the non significant difference in opinons about joining the workforce between males and females. This felt like a immense step forward to recognising that today’s young women are just as filled with gusto as their male counterparts.
It is quite clear that it would be morally wrong for the government to enforce a mandatory recruitment, given that they still are not fully trained doctors and hence not under the purview of the Epidemic Act.
With the right incentive and protective equipments, we have an overwhelming number of students willing to step in; which was quite contrary to what we intuitively assumed at the start of the study. The government and hospitals need to remember that these are still just kids being thrown into the deep end of the pool and need to be guided.
Their concerns must be looked after on priority, they should be given good renumeration for their work and fall-safe mechanisms put in place to protect their occupational health.
P.s. The study was simple, but was rejected by multiple ethics committes on the basis of the questionnaire not being validated. TBH, i’m tired of asking for ethics approvals where it really isnt necessary. The form was completely anonymous and there was no such data that was collected that could trace out 1 person. Hence, the Medium Post and no PubMed article.
