Unity in Times of Isolation: Centralizing Volunteerism During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

To the Editor: Medical school’s intense academic demands can cause students to lose sight of what initially called them to medicine. In adversity, however, we return to medicine’s fundamental purpose: helping those in need. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this has manifested in a nationwide swell of student volunteer initiatives addressing specific needs in their communities. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), we created the umbrella organization UNMC COVID Relief (UNMC CoRe) to assess community needs, effectively organize the student response, and ensure maximal benefit from the widespread desire to help. Its mission is to coordinate multiple initiatives and offer students meaningful opportunities to connect and collaborate beyond our virtual classrooms during a time of marked social isolation. UNMC CoRe supports this mission with 3 key pillars: Student volunteers: Initially established to coordinate volunteers to provide child and pet care for UNMC housestaff, UNMC CoRe grew to oversee collection and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and manage mask-sewing initiatives. Our robust network of more than 250 student volunteers enabled our team to connect available students with initiatives serving areas of evolving need. Institutional coordination: UNMC CoRe not only served to connect our institution to the local community but also amplified the outreach of Nebraska Medicine, our university’s clinical partner. As local needs grew, we helped link Nebraska Medicine’s PPE resources to Omaha clinics in an efficient and equitable manner. Additionally, UNMC CoRe managed the volunteers for Nebraska Medicine’s community mask-sewing initiative, mobilizing 100 students to facilitate the production of more than 40,000 masks by over 400 community sewists. Interorganizational collaboration: Partnerships with local medical associations and expertise gained from managing smaller initiatives enabled UNMC CoRe to build upon existing community and institutional infrastructure. After managing Nebraska Medicine’s mask-sewing initiative, UNMC CoRe collaborated with local organizations to lead a second program to sew 40,000 additional masks for students on meal assistance and their families in Nebraska’s largest public school district. In response to surges in COVID-19 cases across Nebraska, we mobilized local, state, and national partnerships to distribute 41,000 units of PPE to affected federally qualified health centers and underresourced clinics. In the academic onslaught of medical school, we can lose our focus on the social context in which we live. UNMC CoRe’s mission to organize student service meaningfully has deepened connections between our student, medical, and local communities despite the added difficulties of physical distance and social isolation. Acknowledgments: The authors thank UNMC, Nebraska Medicine, and UNMC CoRe’s leadership team for supporting the initiatives described. The authors also thank Rohan Khazanchi, UNMC CoRe’s community outreach coordinator, for mentorship and support in crafting this letter. Finally, the authors thank their numerous local, state, and national partners for joining forces with them to meet the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19.