Students Start COVID-19 Volunteer Group

After in-person classes and clinical rotations were suspended for VP&S students, several decided to form the COVID-19 Student Service Corps, or CSSC, to lend a virtual hand to fellow health professionals. The medical students were joined by students from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, School of Nursing, and College of Dental Medicine.

Through service-learning projects, the students are supporting health care systems, patients, and communities. They staffed a community information line and created a task force to organize procurement, donation, and manufacturing of personal protective equipment. Student researchers remotely volunteered in CUIMC laboratories that are engaged in COVID-19 projects.

The group has released a toolkit for other academic medical centers interested in building their own CSSC chapters. More information is available by writing to cssc@cumc.columbia.edu or by following the group on Twitter @ColumbiaCSSC and @CSSCNational.