major oops

Just finished my last case study presentation of the year...hooray!

As a "study break" before I prepare for a test at 11, I was scoping the internet for interesting news.  I found this article about a bunch of medical students in New Mexico that were giving free glucose screenings, but didn't use new puncture devices for each patient.  That is a major oops.  Now, they are trying to track down all the patients they saw that day because they were possibly exposed to some very nasty blood-borne diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

On one hand, I can't believe this happened!  This is a big deal.  You can't go around infecting people with other people's blood!  You could be responsible for infecting someone with HIV...someone that trusted you with their health!  I can't believe that these students didn't realize what was happening.  They had to know about infection control and using new needles!  

On the other hand, I can see how something like this can happen.  I mean, just last week I volunteered at a similar health fair where they were also measuring glucose levels!  (Thankfully, I just did oral exams.  Can't hurt anyone with that!)  I bet the problem stemmed from not being properly trained about how to use the glucose measuring device and properly advance to a new lancet.  In health profession school, the first few years are focused primarily on learning about diseases from lectures and books.  At the same time, the faculty is trying to instill a sense of "doing good" and encouraging students to volunteer.  The problem comes from the gap in knowledge of the students doing the volunteering.  Many times, these students are first and second years that have the book knowledge, but not the clinical experience that comes from the later years of medical school.  Then they are put in a situation where they need to rely on under-developed clinical skills and essentially allowed to sink or swim.  It can be a very uncomfortable situation for most students.  Patients come and expect you to have all the knowledge of a "real" doctor.  Sure, the students know about how glucose levels work in diabetes; but chances are, they have never tested glucose before.  To fix this, the school NEEDS to have a good training program established to help these young students learn basic clinical skills early on or be trained at specific tasks before they are allowed to volunteer at such events.  That way, the community can still benefit from receiving free screenings and healthcare while the students still benefit from "hands-on" learning, all while avoiding travesties like this.

I'm sure applications at that medical school will go down nest year!  Their reputation has certainly taken a hit.  Thankfully, at Midwestern (from what I'm aware), most programs begin learning basic clinical skills right away in their first year.  I would have gladly trusted my fellow students to check my glucose at our event last week.