Flu Lessons: A Pandemic is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Harold Jeghers, MD, who was chief of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center from 1946 to 1956, was entirely devoted to medical education. It was said that he had no other interests, that medical education was both his occupation and his hobby. For him, any event—from a rare illness to a visiting physician—was a learning opportunity for medical students.
Jeghers would have relished the all-hands-on-deck response to the H1N1 pandemic currently being demonstrated by the faculty and students at the School of Medicine and at the School of Nursing & Health Studies.
Medical and nursing students not only lined up to be vaccinated, they quickly learned how to administer the H1N1 vaccine and got busy vaccinating at-risk students across the campus.
Thanksgiving week saw long lines form as student volunteers manned vaccination stations at the Leavey Center. Across the campus, posters featuring a stern Jack the Bulldog reminded everyone to “wash, cover, avoid, and don’t touch,” preventive measures that may have helped slow the spread of the virus from its high rates in September. Though the outbreak has caused nearly 30,000 hospitalizations and 2,000 deaths nationally since the end of August, no Georgetown University students have required hospitalization.
For those with respiratory ailments, compromised immune systems, or pregnant women, the disease can be severe or fatal.
“We educate our medical students to really go into harm’s way,” says Stephen Ray Mitchell, MD, dean for medical education. “In this case, we are sending students to be health care providers, to be engaged with their patients, and this year many of these patients will have the H1N1 influenza. So medical students have an obligation to take care of themselves and to be protected from the flu, not only so they don’t get sick, but also to make sure they don’t take it to other patients.”
“So that’s both an obligation and a privilege,” says Mitchell.
Nursing majors at NHS annually administer seasonal flu vaccinations on campus. This year, along with their faculty, the students have administered seasonal and H1N1 vaccines on the main and law campuses. Under the guidance of faculty, students are working in shelters, schools, and adult living facilities, conducting prevention education about the flu. Students working in Arlington will also be key players in an emergency preparedness outreach clinic for high-risk individuals, immunizing taxi drivers at Reagan National Airport.
“This is a win-win situation,” Joan Burggraf Riley, MSN, assistant professor of nursing and human science, says. “Our students are looking for opportunities to practice screening and administering immunizations. At the same time, this is something we can give back to the university to keep our community healthy."
The study of infectious disease, which experienced a decline with the emergence of an arsenal of antibiotics after World War II, has rebounded in recent years. Mitchell recounts that Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, often tells the story that when he came to NIH to study infectious disease, people asked him, “Why are you doing this? Infectious disease—it’s all been done!”
Then came the AIDS epidemic.
Today, the study of infectious disease is increasingly vital. Global travel has changed the time and distance factor for transmission. Antibiotic resistance has brought back diseases we thought we had under control. And though the list of emerging diseases is on the rise, students don’t fully appreciate the terrifying history of infectious disease because so many dreaded diseases such as polio and diphtheria are not seen today.
James Welsh, MD, MPH, assistant vice president for student health services and chair of the department of family medicine, says of the student volunteers, “This is the first influenza pandemic we’ve experienced in our generation, so this is a tremendous opportunity for medical and nursing students not only to learn about the disease and how to administer the vaccine, but also from the demonstration of the challenges in public health. It’s a significant learning experience.”
Dr. Jeghers would have wholeheartedly agreed.
By Frank Reider, GUMC Communications
