The students of our Faculty help the Slovak healthcare system even in the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of them work in various wards, including reprofiled COVID workplaces, others are at triage or sampling centers.
Currently, almost two hundred students of our Faculty help out part-time at the L. Pasteur University Hospital in Košice, and 30 others work as part of their teaching at the University Hospital’s large-capacity sampling center. Nine of our students work at AGEL Hospital Košice-Šaca, and others help out in regional hospitals and mobile sampling spots near their homes or regional hospitals. The network of Procare policlinics and hospitals Svet zdravia have recently addressed the Faculty with a call for those interested in volunteering in regional hospitals, to which more than ten of our students have already responded. In addition, 25 students of our Faculty work in the Intervention Team of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic. 
According to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, UPJŠ prof. Daniela Pella, M.D., PhD. the students of the Faculty help healthcare more than ever before, since the beginning of the pandemic, due to the need to be helpful, but also to gain practical experience. “It is a challenging period for students, both physically and mentally, because they have to manage distance or full-time study of medicine and other medical fields with work performed on weekends or in night shifts. They are confronted with a sad reality especially at COVID wards and have to deal with the fragility of human lives,” states prof. Daniel Pella, M.D., PhD.
Why do our students help and what do they experience in their work?
Here are snippets of their thoughts: ●”I feel the need and the duty to be helpful…” ●”In such contact with practice and reality, we can learn a lot and gain great experience…” ● “I can not imagine that all that work would have to be done by health professionals who are already working at their limits … ” ●“ It is natural that if I can get the education and knowledge that others need for free, I will be happy to return it to them…” ●“ Above the quiet bodies of people in artificial sleep because of the COVID at the Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Unit, I always wonder why they are not be vaccinated and chose the more difficult path…
International medical students also would like to help, the obstacle is the language barrier
We also register the interest of our international students in helping the Slovak healthcare system during their studies, but a very good knowledge of the Slovak language is the condition for this work – although they often understand our language well, they do not speak Slovak fluently. However, we know about some students, for example, the student of the 3rd year Hima Kachroo, who comes from India, works in the aforementioned Intervention Team of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic and her classmates help her in case of language problems. Other international students help out in their home countries, for example Ali Adel worked at the COVID department all summer in Sweden. “It was quite a natural decision and I would like to help during my study here in Slovakia, if my language skills allowed it. I am very interested in studying medicine, I am a proud student of the Faculty of Medicine, UPJŠ and I love the city of Košice, so I would like to be useful here if such an opportunity arises,” notes Ali Adel, a 4th-year student of study programme General Medicine at the FM UPJŠ.
