OSU College of Medicine to graduate students early to help with COVID-19 fight
COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Some Ohio State University College of Medicine students are getting ready to graduate early so they can help in the fight against COVID-19.
Graduation was supposed to be May 3. Instead these students will be getting their degrees Sunday.
Ross Wanner is pursuing emergency medicine with an interest in disaster management, so he says what’s going on now is right up his alley.
According to OSU, he’s one of 54 med students who will be getting their degrees early. According to the university, they meet all graduation requirements.
The senior med students asked the university if they could graduate early because they want to get into the healthcare workforce and be able to help.
This has happened in some other states.
On Friday, OSU’s Board of Trustees met remotely and approved it here, too.
“As far as I know, we’re gonna get an email saying you graduated,” Wanner said.
But he’s OK with that; in fact, he’s excited about it. It means countless hours put in at OSU’s medical school and emergency department will soon be paying off.
“I don’t necessarily know what the next steps will be, but if we end up getting pulled out into the front line and helping out in the emergency department or even helping out in triage or swabbing people or whatever it may be, it’s kind of exciting for me,” he said.
Wanner’s residency in Kentucky starts in June, but he’s hoping to be able to help somewhere sooner.
Although the semester certainly isn’t ending how he or others expected, he said he and the other students are ready to go.
“People are excited to graduate early just to be available for any positions that might open up so we can pay it forward and help out with patient care and, it’s not only patient care but it’s also what can we learn and take away from this to make operations and improve for the future so everybody seems to be pretty excited about it,” Wanner said.
Ohio University also announced this week it’s graduating medical students and nursing students early so they can get into the field and help, too.