When Omicron Struck, Mount Sinai’s Students Signed Up to Help
Arman Azad and Aliza Gross
Several days after Christmas, second-year medical student Arman Azad met with top administrators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to plan how he and fellow students could help the Mount Sinai Health System handle the crush of COVID-19 patients falling sick from the Omicron variant.
As co-leader of the Student WorkForce at Icahn Mount Sinai, Mr. Azad says his job involved “helping the Health System deal with the most severe bottlenecks, as cases rose and staff were in isolation, and then organizing students to address those needs.” He and his co-leaders worked closely with their deans to mobilize students for appropriate roles, ensuring they had the training and protective equipment needed to stay safe.
During this latest COVID-19 surge, 198 medical, PhD, and master’s students at Icahn Mount Sinai have logged roughly 5,000 hours performing various tasks. They have worked in the Emergency Departments at six of the Health System’s eight hospitals and have also helped run asymptomatic testing programs for staff in those locations. Students have assisted in the pop-up testing sites in the student resident hall. And at The Mount Sinai Hospital, which shares a campus with the school, they have delivered meals to inpatients and assisted in the urgent care center.
Their efforts represent the fourth wave of student involvement since Mount Sinai’s Student WorkForce was created in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic. Since then, the WorkForce has ebbed and flowed to meet the needs of Mount Sinai’s hospitals. Unlike in earlier waves, the students recently received an hourly wage for their work. Along the way, they have also honed their WorkForce model, sharing it with other schools and health systems throughout the country. Students published a paper about their contributions in June 2021 in Academic Medicine.
In addition to assisting staff, WorkForce members say the most gratifying aspect of their jobs is helping the patients who need Mount Sinai most. Many of Mount Sinai’s hospitals serve communities in New York City that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
On New Year’s Eve, Mr. Azad worked in The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Emergency Department into the early morning hours, taking patients’ blood pressure and other vitals.
Calista Dominy and Brett Weingart
“It was a busy night and an opportunity to learn from experienced providers and offer relief to staff where I could,” he says. “The pandemic has brought to light many of the inequities in medicine, and Omicron only amplified that. For people who can’t access consistent primary care, the emergency room serves a critical role, one that was threatened by staffing shortages as COVID cases surged. I’m proud of my fellow students who did their small part to ensure the Hospital could continue providing care to those who needed it most.”
Shortly after recovering from COVID-19 herself, Calista Dominy—also in her second year of medical school—assisted in The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Emergency Department on New Year’s Eve, as well. Ms. Dominy says one of the things she loves most about Icahn Mount Sinai is its strong commitment to social justice and student advocacy.
“Working New Year’s in the emergency room is an experience I will never forget,” she says. “The Omicron surge brought many more patients through the doors on a night that is typically notoriously busy.”
Workforce member Jesse F. Mangold, who is a dual MD-PhD student with a specialty in microbiology, chose to deliver meals to The Mount Sinai Hospital’s COVID-19-positive inpatients.
Jesse F. Mangold
“Meal delivery may not be the first role that comes to mind when you think of a first responder, but it means a lot to patients who have reduced contact and need nutrition for recovery,” Mr. Mangold says. “There was this tremendous bottleneck because you couldn’t just enter their rooms with a tray. All of the safety precautions needed to be implemented. My task served two needs—to feed our patients and relieve our already taxed nursing staff.” Before he was able to enter a patient’s room, Mr. Mangold had to properly don his personal protective equipment and then properly doff it immediately after leaving.
In the Hospital’s kitchen, located in the building’s basement and through a labyrinth of hallways, Mr. Mangold worked alongside a staff member who was seven months pregnant. “She was putting the Hospital and its patients first and taking personal risks to bring meals to patients,” he says. “Every team member is essential. She is a health care hero.”
Second-year medical student Claire Ufongene helped Mount Sinai conduct asymptomatic testing of employees. “The asymptomatic testing program allows employees to regularly monitor their health and return to the hospital safely,” she says. “It’s been wonderful to work with members of the Mount Sinai community, including students and employees. I’ve been happy to contribute in a small way to facilitate a testing process that’s easy and accessible.”
Claire Ufongene
Early last year, medical student Aliza Gross became involved in addressing vaccine hesitancy and helping patients obtain COVID-19 vaccine appointments through the internet and their Mount Sinai MyChart apps. At Mount Sinai Morningside, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, she recently helped counsel patients entering the Emergency Department about the benefits of receiving a vaccine.
“It was very meaningful to have patient contact after spending so much of our medical school career remote,” she says. During the most recent spike, Ms. Gross took on the role of Student WorkForce co-leader and started taking shifts in the Mount Sinai Health System’s Express Care center—an urgent care facility—helping administer COVID-19 testing to sick patients. “It was gratifying to help our staff where they were experiencing the biggest backlogs,” she says.
Now that the worst of the Omicron wave seems to be receding, Mr. Azad says students remain ready to respond to future COVID-19 surges. “One lesson from the pandemic is that all of us, no matter our training or background, can in some way help protect our Health System and those we care for,” he says.
