The COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all. Healthcare workers have lost their lives in the ongoing fight and continue to risk their lives daily to treat patients. We as medical students and EMSA deeply respect the courageous global efforts.

As EMSA, we are very concerned to have received multiple reports from across Europe regarding the treatment of medical students involved in COVID-19 patient care within or outside of their core studies, with them being threatened, supplied with insufficient PPE, being told to reuse FFP2/3 masks for days and many other worrying scenarios. We want to thank everyone who has reached out directly or answered our questionnaire.

EMSA calls on healthcare facilities and universities to treat medical students involved in patient care with appropriate respect, refrain from threatening medical students and their education in any way (directly or indirectly) to go into COVID-19 patient rooms, as students may be at risk themselves. We furthermore call on them to supply students with adequate PPE, as defined by the ECDC, WHO and many other institutions and include them in internal vaccination efforts at the same time as other healthcare professionals working on the same wards. We also call on healthcare facilities to financially compensate students working there, as their involvement in COVID-19 patient care may prohibit them from going after their usual employment outside of University.

The work medical students do has to be seen for what it is and they have to be treated with respect. The healthcare sector has to remain united in order to fight this pandemic to the best of our combined abilities, which in many countries already includes medical students.

For queries, please do not hesitate to reach out to vpe@emsa-europe.eu.