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Stanford Medicine he apologized on Twitter on Friday, after protesters dropped their vaccine distribution plan, which excluded almost all residents and peers, many of whom treat patients with COVID-19. But some say the error points to residents’ need for better representation and support.
While only seven of Stanford’s more than 1,300 residents were initially selected for the vaccine, many workers who have no direct contact with sick patients have received some of the first 5,000 doses, according to New York Times ,
A Stanford resident was introduced in a San Francisco Chronicle video, saying that although the protest was organized by residents, they and others also fought for the remaining peers and nurses.
“It’s not just about residents. The people you see here are all residents because we’re close and it was easy for us to put together all our programs,” but he noted that some of the other groups, including some pediatric nurses and appliances. respiratory therapists, were also overlooked.
“Residents may die too much”
Protesters carried placards saying “Lack of priority,” “Help me help my patients,” “Frontline and forget,” and “And the people can die.”
According to the NPR, a council of resident chiefs sent a letter to Stanford leaders on Thursday evening expressing anger at the allocation plan.
On Friday, Stanford deans and directors emailed staff: “We are writing to acknowledge the significant concerns expressed by our community regarding the development and implementation of our vaccine distribution plan. We take full responsibility and apologize deeply to everyone. we recognize that we should have acted faster to resolve the errors that led to a result that we did not anticipate, “they wrote.
“We are working quickly to address the shortcomings of our plan and to develop a revised version.”
Stanford did not respond until publication Medscape ‘Medical News questions about what the revised plan would look like.
The apology mentioned that more people will have access to the vaccine with the next delivery of bottles, which they expected to arrive this week.
Carrie Rassbach, MD, director of Stanford’s Pediatric Residency Program, said in the meantime others are stepping up.
“The President of the Peds Department, division heads, associate presidents, educational leaders and others who are not at high risk have offered to wait until all clinically facing employees have been vaccinated.” wrote on Twitter.
Better representation is needed
New York Times, who obtained a copy of the memorandum on the selection process, reported that the defective plan was designed by researchers and ethicists and the purpose was to assign a risk score with an algorithm for hospital staff that would calculate the highest risk of get the virus and become seriously ill, using factors such as age, job description and the number of COVID-19 cases detected in the person’s department.
Residents, who are usually younger and work in many departments, have been added to the list.
Times reported that hospital administrators needed 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 flying among the overwhelmed administrators.
Janis Orlowski, MD, chief health care officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, said Medscape medical news the Stanford glitch was not something they had anticipated when the AAMC sent instructions to medical institutions a week before the Pfizer vaccine appeared.
She said she believed medical students were the group the organization should advocate for in order to receive early vaccines, not residents. She and the others expected residents to be recognized as key workers and to be a priority for the vaccine.
“I sent a note saying that medical students, such as residents and doctors – if they were in a clinical rotation – should be considered essential workers and should be vaccinated like other people in their cohort,” Orlowski said.
She said she had not heard of similar problems with the launch of the vaccine at other institutions and that the Stanford problem seemed to be an “unfortunate” event – “good people trying to do the right thing and it was a failure”.
Said Maximilian Cruz, MD, a fourth-year resident of Ohio Medscape medical news that, although he did not consider it intentional to omit residents from the first phase of Stanford vaccination, he said it reflected a broader issue: “lack of resident representation.”
He said: “It’s the same reason residents across the nation have mediocre benefits at best – matching 401K is a peppered dream for most – painful maternity leave and usually non-existent paternity leave, wages in largely stagnant since the 1960s, when they were adjusted for inflation, and so on. . “
“I think the protesting Stanford residents – in a way that has ensured the continued care of patients safely – have been justified and contributed to the rapid reaction of the leadership,” said Cruz, who is the current president of the National Association of Med-Peds residents; he stressed that his views on this were his only.
Cruz highlighted the countless health inequalities that the pandemic has highlighted.
“The lack of representation and power that residents have in workplace decisions that directly affect them can be added to this list,” he said.
Marcia Frellick is a Chicago-based freelance journalist. He previously wrote for the Chicago Tribune, Science News and Nurse.com and was an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, Cincinnati Enquirer and St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times. Follow her on Twitter at @mfrellick