GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Michigan State University has made hundreds of it’s graduating health care students available, earlier than usual, to help in the COVID-19 response.
The university is doing that by working with the state to expedite the licencing necessary for them to enter the workforce, since they’ve already completed their programs.
MSU says the state has created a temporary license for nurses, who normally have to pass a national exam first.
Students from the colleges of human and osteopathic medicine can get a head-start on their residency.
That’s exactly what Haseeb Khan, MSU College of Human Medicine student is doing, at an emergency department in Detroit, one of our nation’s hot spots.
“It's a little scary,” Khan said. “It's a little nerve-racking. But at the end of the day, this is what we signed up for, everybody writes in their personal statement that I want to go into medicine to help people, well. Now's the perfect time, there's a lot of help that's needed.”
Aron Sousa MD, the interim dean at the MSU college of human medicine, said World War II was the last time the medical profession worked to produce physicians faster. In this instance, they weren’t produced faster, but the university took the students who were done with their programs, and helped to clear the red tape.
“I'm deeply impressed by their dedication and by their interest in serving patients and people in their community,” Sousa said. “And it's scary to go into the hospital with a disease like this.”
87 nurses, 61 doctors and 213 osteopathic physicians can start working, as early as the end of this month, if need be.
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