Welcome to ACS Medical Students News. This quarterly newsletter will keep you informed on important opportunities and medical student initiatives throughout the College.
Any feedback regarding this newsletter is greatly appreciated. See past issues of ACS Medical Students News.
Thank you,
Hanna Lakew
Assistant, Division of Member Services
hlakew@facs.org
COVID-19 and Surgery
The American College of Surgeons (ACS) has developed COVID-19 and Surgery as an online resource for the surgical community facing the impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Content has been developed or curated under the auspices of ACS Regents and Officers to bring surgeons trusted information, including best practices and guidance that specifically target the concerns and challenges surgeons face. As the COVID-19 landscape is rapidly changing, this website is updated several times weekly and houses current and past editions of our electronic newsletter Bulletin: ACS COVID-19 Update. If you have any relevant information you want to bring to our attention, please e-mail covid19@facs.org.
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The Impact of COVID-19 on Medical Student Education
Camila R. Guetter, MD
Medical Student Community Moderator
On behalf of the Medical Student Community administrators, we hope you are all well and safe. We are going through a very delicate period, and information on the COVID-19 pandemic is changing rapidly. We understand how the pandemic may be bringing many challenges to medical education worldwide, so we would like to encourage all ACS medical student members to take advantage of this community to discuss any questions, challenges, resources, or suggestions, and to help one another during this unprecedented time.
On March 24, the RAS-ACS Membership Committee hosted a Hangout call to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on medical student education. Dr. Rebecca Williams-Karnesky, a general surgery resident at University of New Mexico, moderated the call. You can find her on Twitter at @TheZenOfSurgery. Thank you to everyone who joined! For those who did not have a chance to participate, here you can find a summary of the main points discussed during the call.
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COVID-19 RAS-ACS Hangouts
Project Quarantine: Surgical Education—Mondays, 7:00 pm Central
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the suspension of didactic education for many general surgery programs across the United States. Not all programs have the capability to provide didactics in an electronic or on-demand format. In response, the RAS-ACS Education Committee has collaborated to create a supplemental curriculum. Weekly topics are paired with relevant SCORE curriculum, a landmark journal article, and didactic and surgical technique videos sourced from surgical educators across the globe (#QuatantineSurgEd). The RAS-ACS Education Committee will host a weekly one-hour phone Hangout session during the pandemic to discuss readings and videos in a flipped classroom, case-based learning format. We hope that these resources and discussions will serve as a valuable tool for all surgical residents during the next weeks to months, and that our hangouts continue to strengthen our resident community.
Take a Breath and Decompress—Tuesdays, 8:00 pm Central
The current COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way society functions, encouraging social distancing and quarantine. Working in uncertainty can be stressful. Join RAS-ACS for a weekly Take a Breath and Decompress Hangout to talk about current events, difficult cases, concerns, or, most importantly, to just hang out.
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ACS Virtual Medical Student Graduation
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical schools across the U.S. have cancelled or postponed their graduation ceremonies and celebrations. The Resident and Associate Society of the American College of Surgeons (RAS-ACS) is creating a “Virtual Graduation Ceremony” to celebrate and welcome our newest surgical colleagues.
Graduating students are asked to share pictures of themselves to include in the virtual ceremony. We request that the pictures include your name and medical college in some form- either a hand-held sign or as a banner added to the bottom of the picture. Pictures should be submitted to the following dropbox link no later than April 20, 2020, this will allow for editing and placement in the virtual ceremony.
Share your photo
Introduction to the ACS Fundamentals of Surgery Curriculum® for Medical Students
If you are a 4th year medical student who is experiencing disruption in your scheduled rotations, ACS Division of Education would like to offer some assistance. We have selected six cases derived from the ACS Fundamentals of Surgery Curriculum® to instantly augment your available resources. These are available to 4th year medical students at no cost through May 15, 2020.
Surgery Interest Group Success Stories
The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is happy to celebrate our medical student members by highlighting the activities of Surgery Interest Groups (SIG).
San Juan Bautista School of Medicine
“The San Juan Bautista School of Medicine's Surgery Interest Group (SJBSM SIG) looks to promote the importance of surgery within our institution and our community. Our goal to achieve this has been to nurture partnerships, networking and community outreach activities that exemplify the astounding work surgeons do inside and outside of the OR.”
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