War rooms to camps: Medical interns’ learning is on

For the past one week, 21-year-old Divya Srinivas has been spending eight hours a day in a Covid-19 war room set by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)

For the past one week, 21-year-old Divya Srinivas has been spending eight hours a day in a Covid-19 war room set by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Kandivli. She has spent the majority of her time arranging ambulances for Covid-positive patients and finding empty beds in hospitals after receiving frantic calls from strangers.

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“While the job can be stressful, what makes it worthwhile are the calls we get from the same people one day later, thanking us for helping them,” said Srinivas, a third-year student of Swami Ramanand Teerth Rural Government Medical College in Ambajogai, near Latur. “Last week we managed to transport a Covid-19 positive pregnant woman to Nair Hospital and the next day we got a call from her husband sharing news of the birth of their son. The day’s work was worth it,” she said.

Many interns have been placed in BMC war rooms where they have to contact patients and answer calls received by the helpline numbers.

“Working in a call centre sounds doesn’t sound like a doctor’s job but what I’m doing is very important. We help in triaging patients after informing them that they’ve tested positive for the virus, while at the same time I’ve also been helping with counseling anxious callers about symptoms and what they need to do,” said Fagun Shah, 22, a final-year MBBS student of Nair Hospital (Topiwala National Medical College).

In the last week of May, management of Andheri’s Cooper Hospital (HBT Medical College) issued a circular requesting its third and fourth-year MBBS batches to return to campus and help the hospital in the ongoing Covid-19 work. Within a day, authorities of Parel’s KEM Hospital (Seth GS Medical College) and Nair Hospital (TN Medical College) also called for their second, third, and fourth-year students to join the Covid-19 workforce.

Circulars signed by senior authorities of respective hospitals highlighted probable incentives of joining the workforce, including ₹30,000 honorarium per month, and that all working days will be considered as bond service that will be deducted from actual bond service in the future.

“Initially many parents were apprehensive about sending undergraduate medical students in the field during a pandemic, but we realised that the students were very eager to be of any possible help. Work experience always counts for better education over what is taught in a classroom,” said Dr Ashutosh Mhatre, father of a medical intern.

“Nothing beats the feeling adolescent doctors get from the compliments they receive from patients. It’s been a week that interns have joined the workforce, some in war rooms and call centres while others have volunteered for community screening programs. While the interns all seem exhausted, everyone is enjoying being in the field and getting first-hand experience of being a doctor,” said Tanmay Jadhav, spokesperson of Association of State Medical Interns (ASMI).