Summary of meeting with Medical education (Dr.Maggie), internal medicine (Dr. Dabia) and other department chief residents on 5/4/2020
The updates are as follows:
Given the current situation of the COVID 19 Pandemic and the rapid increase in number, maximum number of trainees possible will be needed from each department.
A list has been sent from each department but in the next few days additional trainees will be needed.
Hazem Mbereek is currently working in full capacity (9 family medicine have been sent yesterday to help there together with other residents from medicine and other departments).
Mesaid and Ras Laffan will very soon be working in full capacity as COVID hospitals.
Therefore, residents from all departments including surgical sub specialties should be stand by to cover, meaning that the notice for notifying the residents can be very short.
Medical education department is in close contact with ACGMEI and they are fully understanding that many of the residents are deployed from their departments and might not be getting the type of training relevant to their specialties and moreover graduation requirements might not be achieved given the current situation. On their part, residents are asked to continue to do case logs and procedure logs as appropriate.
At the end of this crisis, programs will need to decide if they find that their residents need extra few months to complete their graduation requirements and therefore their graduation needs to be postponed for few months or not. But as mentioned that decision will be made only by the end of this crisis.
Financial allowance issue was discussed and residents who are deployed to COVID areas may get it after checking their eligibility for requesting with their department.
Accommodation issue: arrangements are being made for those residents deployed to COVID hospitals to have an accommodation while working in these areas to avoid putting their families at risk.
Next few weeks will be a critical in flattening the curve and workforce should be united in the fight against COVID 19 pandemic.