Medical residents flooded Stanford Hospital on Friday in protest after executives there as supposed he used a flawed algorithm to choose his first wave of vaccinations and overwhelmingly excluded caregivers working on the front lines of the covid-19 pandemic.
Of the approximately 1,300 Stanford Medicine residents, only seven were selected to be one of the first 5,000 employees in line to receive the new Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, ProPublica reports. A letter to hospital executives that was signed by residents and reviewed by Ars Technica stated that senior doctors and senior teachers who have worked remotely since March formed the list while only 0.5% of residents were selected for vaccination. And just to add insult to injury, this decision came the same week that residents were asked to volunteer to take turns at the Intensive Care Unit (where they would probably work in close contact with patients with covid-19), as the hospital adapts to increasing cases, apparently due to the holiday season.
In an interview with ProPublica, Sarah Johnson, an OB-GYN resident who has given birth to babies from covid-19 patients, described this as “the final straw” for hospital staff who already felt worn out and past overlooked after habitually risking during an international health crisis.
“Residents have patience, we are the ones who have asked us to intubate, even though some of the caregivers who have taken our time from home are getting vaccinated before us,” he said at the exit. “That’s the last straw to say, ‘We don’t really care about you.'”
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Residents called on Stanford executives to “vaccinate the front line,” as protests erupted on Friday both inside and outside the hospital. Dozens brandished signs with messages such as “First in the room. Behind the line” and “#Healthcare hero. Support is zero.”
Stanford developed an algorithm to choose “ethically” who among its staff it would be the first to be vaccinated, but apparently design flaws put residents at a disadvantage from the outset. Graduates of medical schools often have to complete some type of residency program before they can obtain the medical license where they work under the supervision of other physicians. Because the position is temporary, residents are not assigned a “location” to “connect to the calculation” that determines who would be first in line for the vaccine, a senior resident explained in an email to their peers. And they tend to be younger, he added, which also made them less likely to make the cut, presumably because older people have it. a higher risk to develop serious complications of the virus.
Stanford Medicine executives have done so ever since He admitted that they were fed up:
“We take full responsibility for the errors in the execution of our vaccine distribution plan,” says a press release. emailed statement to Gizmodo. “Our intention was to deploy an ethical and equitable plan for the entire organization, and there were flaws in that plan that we are actively trying to repair. “
In an email to staff reviewed by NPR, Stanford executives and deans apologized and said they had discovered “significant gaps” in the development of a vaccine distribution plan. They went on to say that they are working to correct the plan and anticipate being able to vaccinate “a substantial segment of our community” with luck, as soon as next week, once a larger shipment of vaccines arrives.
Residents are also asking for nurses, therapists, janitors, food service workers and other essential professionals who the algorithm may have ignored to be included among those considered for the first round of vaccinations, NBC reports. And ideally, they would like a seat at the table while the hospital reviews their plan.
I can’t even begin to imagine the frustration these residents must feel, risking their health and safety every day, only to be swept away when relief is finally seen. And not to discredit their struggle, but the fact that their age puts them at a disadvantage to receive the vaccine way too close to home for me as someone who has been immunocompromised basically his entire adult life. Hopefully, Stanford can fix it soon, as this pandemic has been going on for almost a year now and front-line workers have earned the right to skip the queue.
Updated: 12/18/2020, 9:16 PM ET: Added statement from Stanford Medicine.