Should Health Professions Students Receive Priority Access to the COVID-19 Vaccine?

Speakers: Leah Pierson (MD/PhD Student, Harvard University) and Samuel Doernberg (MD Student, Harvard University).

Moderator: Robert Steel, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at UNO and member of the UNO Medical Humanities Faculty.

The US is currently host to over half a million health professions students; they study medicine, nursing, physical and occupational therapy, pharmacy, and many other allied fields. Their education often takes place in clinical settings such as hospitals and therefore exposes them to a similar risk of COVID-19 as many paid health professionals. Yet although it is widely agreed that paid health professionals should receive priority access to COVID-19 vaccines, the status of students remains unclear.

Should students receive similar priority for vaccination as health professionals? How should we think about prioritizing their education as compared to other important societal goals?

In this talk, we explore these questions using ethical frameworks about vaccine allocation that help to decide how a limited number of vaccines should be allocated to a much greater number of people who need them.

All events in this series:

The Ted Kooser Center for Health Humanities, an endeavor selected as a UNO Big Idea and launched in late 2019, grows faculty and student research and creative activities in an effort to form a nationally-recognized center of excellence in health humanities that builds on partnerships across UNMC and the Omaha metro area.