I am a medical student in a pandemic and I want to go to work.

I want to dawn my mask and enter the hospital; to see my patients, make them smile, care for them, learn from them.

I just want to go to work.

I was suppose to be on OB/GYN when COVID hit, but PPE shortages kept me out of the first wave. I understood that and did my part. I reverted back to my didactic years of medical school lectures, talking about medicine but not actually experiencing it.

I didn’t complain. I understood. I was a trooper.

My school stepped up. They provided online Zoom sessions where we discussed cases. We talked about the management of a birth and its various complications; we watched videos of new life entering this world. It was fascinating, but it was incomplete; I knew I just had to be there. I was disappointed, but I understood. I did my part to support the healthcare system: I stayed away and continued learning.

But now we are months into the pandemic, and I can’t shake my fear. I worry as speculation of a second wave swirls. I’m not afraid of contracting COVID, I’m afraid of being sent away again. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help.

Professors have told us that we are the future of medicine; that we are essential workers. But how can the future of medicine learn from a virtual classroom while the real world needs us? How can the future of medicine stay home?

Doctors have said no rotations during phase 4. How could they allow students near their patients when patients’ families can’t even visit? They can’t justify the risk, even in the name of education. But how much vital education are we missing out on? Can’t a line be drawn in these unprecedented times?

Unprecedented: there’s a million dollar word for you; a word used by leaders, politicians, and CEOs.

This is unprecedented. We’ve never experience this before. We have no protocol; no action seems certain; everything is topsy-turvy. Millions of people are out of work. Thousands are sick and dying. Despair is rampant.

And I want to go to work? How selfish.

But I got into medicine to serve people.

I’ve been through 20 years of school. The past four have been filled with enough stress to cripple anyone’s mental health. Next I’ll undergo years of specialty training called residency, where that stress will continue. And I’ve done it all for one dream: a chance to help patients.

I didn’t sign up for this crazy journey to be side-lined when a pandemic hit; I signed up to be in the trenches.

I want to go to work but instead, I stare into this abyss of uncertainty.

I don’t want to put patients at risk. I want to do my part to flatten the curve. But I also need to learn. I want to be in the presence of doctors more experienced than I during these unprecedented times. I want to be prepared to help.

I am the future of medicine, and I feel less prepared than my predecessors. Is it riskier to be in a clinic amidst a pandemic, or to be at home, removed from the education I need to serve others?

I signed up to be in the trenches; to help others. I want to learn. I want to go to work.

Anne Keeling

Fourth-Year Osteopathic Medical Student (OMS IV)

Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences

I Want to Go to Work

Anne Keeling