Medical students help virus hospital in Greece
More than a century ago, the Sotiria hospital in Athens was built as a public sanatorium for patients with a feared infectious disease that spread through coughing and killed indiscriminately — tuberculosis.
Now Greece’s main hospital for COVID-19 patients, it’s also the focus of a hands-on training program for dozens of medical students who volunteered to relieve hard-pressed doctors from simpler duties while gaining a close peek at the front lines as medical history is being made.
When the Sotiria — which means “salvation” in Greek — was designated to lead the country's coronavirus response in March, medical staff quickly found themselves too busy to properly carry out ordinary duties at a major Athens hospital that treats all kinds of patients. That’s when two doctors and professors of medicine at Athens University thought of seeking help from volunteers.
Medical student Michaella Alexandrou holds the hand of a patient as her colleague takes a blood test at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
The program was initially designed for graduates in medicine, but so many students, mostly in their final year, asked to join that it ended up running with them — 56 young men and women from Greek and Slovakian medical schools.
“They underwent rigorous training, and were assigned specific duties and peripheral jobs,” said Garyfallia Poulakou, an assistant professor and contagious disease expert who organized the two-month program together with Kostas Syrigos, a professor of medicine and medical oncology.
“Under no circumstances were they to enter the so-called Red Zone with the COVID-19 patients,” she said. “They proved to be fearless, and the experience for me was very, very positive.”More than a century ago, the Sotiria hospital in Athens was built as a public sanatorium for patients with a feared infectious disease that spread through coughing and killed indiscriminately — tuberculosis.
This combination of photos shows medical students Nikolaos Katsanakis, top left, Ilias Sinanidis, top right, Anna Karagiannakou, bottom left, and Konstantinos Koufatzidis at the entrance of the COVID-19 Clinic at Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
The students carry out mundane but necessary jobs at the hospital’s pathological clinic, such as attending minor operations, taking blood samples and handling paperwork. In the COVID-19 section, their duties included taking delivery of blood samples in the safe zone and talking to relatives who were not allowed in to see the patients.
Anna Karagiannakou, 21, a third-year student at Safarik University in Kosice, Slovakia, said she has gained vital insights into what being a doctor fully entails.
“Although I wasn't allowed to help treat coronavirus patients, I saw this as an opportunity to provide assistance with other tasks and gain experience at a historic moment in crisis conditions, the like of which I may never encounter again,” she said.
Medical students Afroditi Gerodimontaki, left, Michaella Alexandrou, center, and Dimitra Siakalli examine a patient at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
A plastic flower is placed on the pocket of the medical student Afroditi Gerodimontaki next to her volunteer card at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Medical students Eleni Fyta, left, and Adamantia Papamichail keep note from a blood test of a patient at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Medical students watch internal medicine Katerina Bakiri, right, as she operates a minimally invasive procedure on a patient at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Medical student Konstantinos Koufatzidis, foreground, takes the blood tests of patients from internal medicine Sofia Prappa at the COVID-19 Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Internal medicine Vassilis Maravitsas tests a patient for COVID-19 following the recent protocol at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
A medical student checks the CT of a patient at the COVID-19 Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Medical staff chat on a balcony as a cat stands outside doctors' office at the COVID-19 Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Medical students attend the morning meeting with the doctors of the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Katerina Bakiri examines a patient as medical students Nikolaos Syrigos, left, Eleni Fyta, center, and Adamantia Papamichail look on at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Medical student Anastasia Gkiala, right, helps internal medicine Vassilis Maravitsas to operate a minimally invasive procedure on a patient the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens, May 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Text from AP News story by AP PHOTOS: Medical students help virus hospital in Greece by Thanassis Stavarkis.