Written by AMSA Environmental Health Action Committee Co-Chairs Heidi Schoomaker, Haley Probst, and Marcela Betancourt, published in KevinMD, October 5, 2020
Dear Class of 2024,
You are embarking on a career in medicine during one of the most pivotal times in our nation’s history. Each of you has an intimate experience with COVID-19, whether through first-hand contact with the disease or through the efforts to minimize its spread. And over the course of the next four years, your understanding of this coronavirus will only deepen.
The venerable institutions you are attending have put forth their best efforts to ensure that you’ll graduate as intellectually competent physicians. You’ll be armed with the knowledge of exactly which cells and cytokines interact to produce the cascade of chemicals that cause the signs and symptoms you’ll come to recognize as COVID. By the time you reach your residency, you’ll know the pathophysiology, histology, clinical features, diagnostics, treatments, and complications of this and hundreds of other diseases, syndromes, and pathologies that afflict humankind.
