主要研究 今天

2020年3月, when the fear wrought by COVID-19 shuttered the 主要研究 campus and sent students home to the safety of their high school bedrooms, Shannon Larkin ’16 ‘21G regularly closed herself into a tiny space with some of the sickest coronavirus patients, 仅使用个人防护设备进行防护.

23岁的卡洛琳·麦古利从她的家乡富兰克林通勤两小时, 麻萨诸塞州, 去达勒姆做同样的事.

Larkin and Mercuri are among the 34 student volunteers who help power McGregor Memorial EMS, 达勒姆的主要救护车服务, 主要研究, 马德伯里和李. And even when COVID was at its worst, these students showed up to care for the community.

“人们依赖我们. 如果没人想进来的话, 没有救护车,墨丘利说。, 医学微生物学专业医师助理预科. “照顾这个社区是一种荣幸.”

不仅是麦格雷戈的学生志愿者, 谁组成了大约一半的服务人员, 继续做志愿者, 他们在2020年奉献了创纪录的时间：超过40年,000小时, 增加5,比上一年减少了000小时, 据麦格雷戈执行董事克里斯·勒梅林2006年11月说. “They said ‘we are health care providers, this is what that’s all about, people need us.’”

这并不容易. 在大流行的早期, Lemelin回忆, 波士顿和纽约的病例激增, much about the disease and how it spread remained mysterious and personal protective equipment (PPE) was scarce.

“It was a very stressful time for all of us,墨丘利说。, a two-year veteran of McGregor. “We’re told that this is a deadly disease and then we’re put in the back of a tiny ambulance with likely COVID patients.” For her, the greatest concern was that she might transmit the disease to roommates or her parents. 尽管麦古利每天24小时轮班，从父母家来回上班, 主要研究将伊顿公馆提供给在麦格雷戈工作的学生.

COVID并没有让麦格雷戈措手不及. 2020年1月，在美国出现任何病例之前.S.在美国，该部门制定政策并开展培训. Lemelin, 谁拥有联合国卫生大学公共卫生硕士学位, ordered 500 extra surgical masks and patted himself on the back for his foresight and preparation. Those 500 masks turned out to be “an order of magnitude” short of what they needed, he acknowledges.

随着病毒的传播和指导方针的改变, McGregor volunteers scrambled to stay abreast of constantly changing protocols. “You’d be gone for a week then you come in for your next shift and suddenly all of the guidelines have changed,拉金说。, 谁接待她？.S. 七月护理学. “这需要学习很多东西. 我们已经对感染控制有了很多了解, 但现在我们必须学会如何使用这些设备, 清洁设备, 清理救护车.”

这些协议, 其中包括罩状的动力空气净化呼吸器, worked: The service traced no COVID cases among its members to ambulance calls.

Volunteering during the pandemic gave the McGregor volunteers a unique — and often sobering — perspective on a historical event. “最糟糕的事情是看着人们受苦，”麦古利说. “One time we transported to a local hospital and the nurses were saying ‘you’re going to have to wait, 我们真的没有床位给这个病人.’”

Lemelin describes responding to calls to facilities with active COVID cases as “walking into a war zone.”

“我认为这对我们的一些志愿者影响很大，”他说.

“当人们来接种疫苗时，他们流下了喜悦的眼泪. I could feel the world go back to normal right there in the Whittemore Center.”

随着COVID疫苗接种势头增强, McGregor’s student volunteers continued stepping up to serve by staffing vaccination clinics. “那是一股很大、很大、很大的新鲜空气. 我们已经习惯了有痛苦的人, but when people came for the vaccine they were crying tears of joy and taking videos,墨丘利说。. She adds that she was proud of the “enormous” turnout at the 主要研究 student clinics she staffed. “I could feel the world go back to normal right there in the Whittemore Center.”

虽然这不是传统学生对COVID的反应, 麦古利和拉金都没有考虑过不继续做志愿者. “很多人感到无助和瘫痪, 但在救护车上工作是很熟悉的,拉金说。, who joins the nursing staff of Portsmouth Hospital’s intensive care unit after graduation. “It felt like something I could do to keep the world moving at such an unprecedented time.”