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Stanford Medicine he apologized to me on Twitter on Friday after protesters blasted their vaccine distribution plan that left out almost all of their residents and colleagues, many of whom are treating COVID-19 patients. But some say the mistake demonstrates residents ’need for better representation and defense.
Although only seven of the more than 1,300 Stanford residents were initially selected to get the vaccine, many workers who have no direct contact with sick patients received some of the first 5,000 doses, according to The New York Times ,
A Stanford resident showed up at Chronicle of San Francisco video, saying that while the protest was organized by residents, they and others also fought for colleagues and nurses who were left off the list.
“It’s not just about the residents. The people you see here are residents because we’re close and it was easy for us to put together all of our programs,” but he mentioned that some other groups, including some pediatric nurse therapists, also they were overlooked.
“Residents can also die”
Protesters carried placards that said, “Lack of priority,” “Help me help my patients,” “Frontline and Forgotten,” and “Residents Can Die Too.”
According to NPR, a board of top residents sent a letter to Stanford leaders Thursday night expressing anger over the allocation plan.
On Friday, Stanford deans and executives sent staff an apology by email: “We are writing to acknowledge the significant concerns expressed by our community regarding the development and implementation of our vaccine distribution plan. We assume the “We take full responsibility and apologize to all of you. We recognize that we should have acted more quickly to address the mistakes that led to an outcome we did not expect,” they wrote.
“We are working quickly to fix the flaws in our plan and develop a revised version.”
Stanford did not respond at the time of publication to Medscape Medical News’ questions about what the revised plan would look like.
Apologies noted that more people would have access to the vaccine with the next shipment of vials, which they hope to arrive this week.
Carrie Rassbach, MD, director of Stanford’s Pediatric Residency Program, said that in the meantime, there are others that are increasing.
“The Chair of the Department of Foot, Heads of Division, Associate Presidents, Educational Leaders and others who are not at high risk have offered to wait until vaccination has been offered to all clinic workers “. he wrote on Twitter.
Better representation is needed
The New York Times, who obtained a copy of the note on the selection process, reported that the defective plan was designed by researchers and ethics and the goal was to assign a risk score with an algorithm for hospital staff to calculate the highest risk of contracting the virus and becoming seriously ill, using factors such as age, job description, and the number of cases of COVID-19 detected in the person’s department.
Residents, who are typically younger and work in many departments, dropped from the list.
He Time reported that hospital administrators were supposed to review the list generated by the algorithm, but the note revealed that it did not happen due to the rapid generation of the list and the frantic communications between overwhelmed administrators. .
This was stated by Janis Orlowski, physician, head of health of the Association of Medical Schools of America Medscape Medical News the Stanford problem was not something they had anticipated when the AAMC sent guidance to medical institutions a week before the Pfizer vaccine came out.
He said he believed medical students would have been the group the organization should advocate for to get the first vaccines, not residents. She and others hoped residents would be recognized as essential and prioritized front-line workers for the vaccine.
“We sent a note saying that medical students, such as residents and doctors (if they were on a clinical rotation), should be considered essential workers and should be vaccinated like other individuals in their cohort,” he said. Orlowski.
He said he has not heard of similar problems with the deployment of vaccines at other institutions and that the Stanford problem appeared to be a “regrettable” event: “good people trying to do the right thing and it was a mistake.”
Said Maximilian Cruz, MD, a fourth-year resident of Ohio Medscape Medical News that while he did not believe it was intentional that the omission of residents from Stanford’s first vaccination phase was intentional, he said it reflects a broader theme: the “lack of resident representation.”
He said: “It’s the same reason residents across the nation have, at best, mediocre benefits: the 401,000-mile concordance is a big dream for most: sad maternity leave and leave of absence. generally non-existent paternity, wages largely stagnant since the 1960s when adjusted for inflation, etc. “
“I think the Stanford residents’ protest, in a way that ensured continued and safe patient care, was justified and helped get a quick response from the leadership, ”said Cruz, who is the current president of the National Association of Med-Peds Residents. ; he stressed that his views on the issue are only his own.
Cruz pointed out the myriad of health inequalities that the pandemic has revealed.
“The lack of representation and power that residents have in labor decisions that directly affect them can be added to this list,” he said.
Marcia Frellick is a Chicago-based freelance journalist. She has previously written for the Chicago Tribune, Science News and Nurse.com and was editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times. Follow her on Twitter at @mfrellick