Pandemic flu guidance for medical students

12 November 2009

GUIDANCE on the role medical students might play in a flu pandemic has been published by the BMA’s Medical Students Committee.

It describes how medical students might be used to ease pressure on the NHS if it becomes depleted by staff sickness and overstretched by swine flu cases. The Q&A answers questions about the impact a flu pandemic could have on students’ education, their exams and elective plans. The information was put together from Department of Health guidance.

The guidance advises that students may be asked to help if the NHS moves to full pandemic mode. It warns that education could be disrupted and that, in extreme circumstances, students could be allowed to graduate without taking their final exam. Final years are expected to be the only students asked to help and they would likely be given temporary registration from the GMC and temporary employment contracts to allow them to work in the NHS. But the guidance emphasises that students would not be expected to act outside their area of competence or experience should they be asked to work.

The Q&A report can be viewed here