Athens, Greece: More than a century ago, the Sotiria hospital in Athens was built as a public sanatorium for patients with a feared infectious disease that spread through coughing and killed indiscriminately _ tuberculosis.
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Now Greece's main hospital for COVID-19 patients, it's also the focus of a hands-on training program for dozens of medical students who volunteered to relieve hard-pressed doctors from simpler duties while gaining a close peek at the front lines as medical history is being made.
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When the Sotiria _ which means "salvation" in Greek _ was designated to lead the country's coronavirus response in March, medical staff quickly found themselves too busy to properly carry out ordinary duties at a major Athens hospital that treats all kinds of patients.
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That's when two doctors and professors of medicine at Athens University thought of seeking help from volunteers.
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The program was initially designed for graduates in medicine, but so many students, mostly in their final year, asked to join that it ended up running with them _ 56 young men and women from Greek and Slovakian medical schools.
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"They underwent rigorous training, and were assigned specific duties and peripheral jobs," said Garyfallia Poulakou, an assistant professor and contagious disease expert who organized the two-month program together with Kostas Syrigos, a professor of medicine and medical oncology.
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"Under no circumstances were they to enter the so-called Red Zone with the COVID-19 patients," she said. "They proved to be fearless, and the experience for me was very, very positive."
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The students carry out mundane but necessary jobs at the hospital's pathological clinic, such as attending minor operations, taking blood samples and handling paperwork.
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In the COVID-19 section, their duties included taking delivery of blood samples in the safe zone and talking to relatives who were not allowed in to see the patients.
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Anna Karagiannakou, 21, a third-year student at Safarik University in Kosice, Slovakia, said she has gained vital insights into what being a doctor fully entails.
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"Although I wasn't allowed to help treat coronavirus patients, I saw this as an opportunity to provide assistance with other tasks and gain experience at a historic moment in crisis conditions, the like of which I may never encounter again," she said.
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Medical students Afroditi Gerodimontaki, left, Michaella Alexandrou, center, and Dimitra Siakalli examine a patient at the Pathological Clinic of Sotiria Hospital in Athens.
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