TOLEDO, Ohio — As hospitals become overwhelmed and the National Guard steps in, there's a need to fill more healthcare jobs than there are qualified candidates.
Medical students are seeing it first hand as they've been through some of the toughest points of the pandemic.
"It's definitely been challenging," said Susan Morand, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Toledo.
"It's a pretty crazy adjustment. And I think we're still learning to adjust with it," added Kendall McCoy, a graduate of the University of Toledo.
Those are the voices of medical students at the University of Toledo.
Morand is in her fourth year and plans to go into pediatrics once she has a residency.
"It's definitely been interesting that the people who are training are going through the same challenges that we're going through. Both kinda emotionally and psychologically. And kinda at the brink of their own aspects of burnout. And then to have those people be your guide has been interesting to see how they cope with it," said Morand.
As a student, Morand has seen a lot in school. She has gotten to opportunity to work as part of a team to help vaccinate the Latino community in a partnership with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.
"My influence started with my family," said Kendall McCoy.
McCoy is a newly graduated physician's assistant going into orthopedic surgery at ProMedica.
"So my dad works as a physician assistant in Cardiothoracic Surgery. And my mom has been a nurse also working in the O.R., both of them for over 30 years already for ProMedica," said McCoy.
With a calling to help patients, both students have seen how unpredictable the pandemic has been.
But as it evolves, so do they.
"Just learning new skills for endurance and dealing with stress in the long term. And also, knowing when to ask for help. Knowing when to seek help. And knowing that you need to be able to kinda help yourself before you can help any patients," said Morand.
It's about balancing self-care, with the aim to one day provide the absolute best care to others.
"Medicine isn't always just giving someone a pill. You know, medicine entails you know giving people support. You know educating people. And I think that's one of the hardest gaps you know we have right now. Is we need healthcare providers to educate people," said McCoy.
So we can make it out of the pandemic or anything else life may throw at us.
The students are encouraging you to go into the medical field if you have a calling.
They say you can help people in so many different ways.
Especially if you're willing to put in the hard work.