ATLANTA, GA – Commenting their status as backline healthcare workers, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has recommended medical students get vaccinated against COVID-19, but only after the general population, cacti, several species of toads, and humpback whales do so first.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was the first in the United States green-lit for Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, with the Moderna vaccine earning approval shortly thereafter. The initial rollout of the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has targeted two main groups: residents of long-term care facilities & health care personnel. Definitely not medical students.

The next targets would include people with underlying medical conditions that put them at significantly higher risk, older adults living in crowded settings, teachers, child care workers, and essential workers, with the eventual hope that the general population would get access to vaccines as Pfizer & Moderna continue to mass-produce them. But definitely not medical students.

“Once we have vaccinated the general population, we will then turn our attention to the next highest risk groups: fauna including cacti, amphibians including several species of toads, and aquatic life starting first with humpback whales,” explained CDC spokesperson Cazzie Barnes. “Only once every living creature in the United States has been vaccinated will the country’s medical students be next up in the queue.”

A statement released by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) was optimistic and surprisingly upbeat. “We may be last but at least this time we’re not forgotten.” The nation’s cohort of frontline healthcare workers look forward to the day medical students get vaccinated so that they can help their medical and surgical teams with the essential task of obtaining a family history.

The American Medical Association recently announced a plan to end its longtime role in CME and guideline publication and instead focus on selling term life, disability, and auto insurance, along with magazine subscriptions. According to Trent Ulreich, Executive Chairperson for Customer Retention, “selling term life insurance to physicians has proven immensely profitable, much moreso than our other roles.”

Documents obtained by GOMERBLOG investigative journalists reveal that the AMA has spent nearly $18 million dollars annually sending unsolicited paper mail adverts to physicians advertising various insurance products, and will bring in $97 million annually by 2023 through this enterprise.

“We plan to increase our mailings from every other week to twice daily, and will include information on great rates for auto and boat insurance, local real estate opportunities, coupons, roof repair, and driveway re-sealing,” said Ulreich.

Local physicians were very enthusiastic about the transition. Anita Chakrabouty, a Pediatric Gastroenterologist, said she receives notices twice weekly from the AMA asking her to sign up, pay membership dues, and buy term life insurance. “I had to tell them my address during credentialing, and since then it’s been non-stop,” she said, adding, “their publications are irrelevant to my field. I wish they’d leave me alone.”

Others expressed similar excitement. Jorge Schriver, an area Pathologist, said, “they’ve gotten clever, disguising insurance ads as if they were official tax forms, or sending them in important-looking manila envelopes. I’m always shocked when I open these up, expecting a W-2 or similar form and finding a ‘join now’ advertisement.”

Area Dermatologist Olivia Wong opined “it really cheapens their image and degrades their reputation, to advertise so aggressively, as if they were AOL in the 90s.”

Trent Ulreich, the AMA executive, also hinted at plans to insert text ads within bodies of articles in the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association. “Soon, while you’re reading about the latest advances in the treatment of Nephronophthisis, what will you find, buried in the methods, exclusion criteria, and graphs? Descriptions of amazing rates on Term, Whole Life, and Disability insurance!”

“Would you like to sign up?” added Ulreich. “It’s only $299 per year! And we can give you 20% off your next tire change!”

WASHINGTON, DC—Citing new research from the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) that indicates physicians prescribe drugs they learned about in medical school at a far higher rate than those they did not, Washington Medical School has announced its popular Pharmacology course will be immediately and permanently removed from its curriculum.

“The data is striking and indisputable,” said the embarrassed Dean of Students Priya Scryber. “It’s quite clear our former students were heavily influenced by our Pharmacology lectures. You’d think these brilliant young minds would be capable of thinking for themselves, but apparently they’re just blindly prescribing whichever medications they were lectured about in that class.

“How else do you explain,” Dr. Scryber continued, “why every single one of my former students always prescribes carbidopa/levodopa for Parkinson disease and thyroid hormone for hypothyroidism?”

Patients might expect their doctors to be free-thinking practitioners who wouldn’t necessarily always choose insulin for Type I Diabetes or albuterol for acute bronchospasm, but it’s very evident that Pharmacology professors’ aggressive drug education tactics, which include flashy PowerPoint slides and alluring graphs, have had a prolonged impact on students.

“Doctors should freely select the medication that’s most appropriate for their patients,” argues study author, Dr. Doug Pusher, “and not just pick the drug that was peddled to them by some pushy professor who was paid handsomely to describe it to them.”

Dr. Pusher believes that the main problem with large pharmacology courses is that they influence everyone to prescribe the same drugs, failing to take into account that the demographics of every medical office is different. “Drug education for physicians should be individualized,” recommended Dr. Pusher. “Maybe the best solution would be for pharmaceutical companies to send highly-trained representatives to teach doctors which exact medications would work best for their specific patient populations.

“Ideally,” he continued, “this could be done over dinner, or at a Broadway show, or during a baseball game, or even on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii.”

Dr. Pusher also believes it may be necessary to provide doctors with helpful reminders (perhaps with pens, mugs, or even cars with drug names printed on them) since “there are so many drugs these days and, really, who can remember them all?”

The authors next plan to examine whether popular reference materials, such as Epocrates, UpToDate, or the Pharmacopeia, influence which drugs doctors prescribe. If needed, they are more than ready to shut down these nuisances as well.

A years-long undercover operation ended last week with the arrests of over 45 medical students involved in a publication ring. Stacks of abstracts, posters, and a few manuscripts submitted to low-impact journals were confiscated during the raid, representing over 1,200 total lines on Curriculum Vitae for residency applications. Many of the publications had 10 or more students cited as contributors who had never spoken to anyone performing the research.

“This practice is actually not that uncommon,” admitted one of the agents, who has asked to remain anonymous to avoid threats from still overly-involved parents. “One student will make an abstract and throw a few friends’ names on there. Then those friends will return the favor. We’ve just never seen it on this scale.”

The ring, nicknamed “Gunner’s Circle,” included an estimated 50 students at over 5 medical schools.

“We typically see this type of thing with students going into ortho or neurosurg,” said the agent. “Interestingly, in this case it was almost all aspiring pediatricians.”

The ring was led by a still unidentified student known only as “The Practitioner.” Top level members arrested included James “P is for pubs” Patterson and Jake Sterling aka “Big MD.”

Several DEA agents went into deep cover as students to infiltrate the ring, providing valuable information on the inner workings of the organization at great risk to themselves. One agent has remained missing since her cover was blown, likely after expressing an interest in pathology.

With this operation brought to a close, the DEA is now looking to focus its attention on business students falsifying LinkedIn accounts.

NEW YORK — Medical students and patients alike were surprised to find the lobby of University Hospital swarmed with executives from some of the world’s largest for-profit corporations on Monday. The executives had been invited to come learn about the School of Medicine’s business model as part of the school’s “Partnership on Profits” program.

“What we’re really excited to learn about is the medical student workforce,” noted Fortune 500 executive Charles Smith. “It’s amazing that the School of Medicine has cultivated a workforce of hundreds that will do absolutely anything and pay the University $60,000 per year. We’ve managed to avoid giving any of our employees benefits by keeping them all part-time — and maximally leveraged our unpaid intern utilization — but we haven’t yet figured out a way to get workers to pay us. That’s the next frontier of business optimization.”

They key — according to the Partnership on Profits program — is to focus on the valuable experience and education these “employees” are receiving. “You can’t put a price-tag on workplace experience,” explained program director Sharon Hopkins. “Unless, of course, that price-tag is $60,000 payable to the School of Medicine by cash or check. Why should we be paying these workers when we’re also giving them the intangibles they’ll need to advance their careers? That just doesn’t make any sense.”

In a seminar with administrators and medical students, the executives learned exactly how the system works. The key, according to administrators, is to make an arbitrary scoring system with which the student/workers are judged. Once they are focused on maximizing these “grades” they will do literally anything and pay the school to do it. When the medical students on the panel were asked if they enjoyed paying $60,000 a year to work in the hospital, one student responded, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Thank you, sir. Please tell my attending I told you that so I get honors.”

At press time the executives were excited to bring back what they had learned to their respective companies. Some had even started talking with national banks about their student loan programs, hoping to find a way for workers to go into debt to pay for their jobs.

Dan Honsfeld has officially received his Doctor of Medicine this spring without ever fully grasping the concept of womanly bleeding as part of the menstrual cycle. “I understand the rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone, how the uterine lining is built in conjunction with egg maturation and ovulation, but I just don’t get the whole blood part,” says Dan, visibly confused and uncomfortable regarding the subject.

“Is it like popping a water balloon with a large gush of blood and then a drip for a few days? Or is it more of a constant stream? Or spurts?” he wondered to himself, much too embarrassed to ask for clarification and instead just avoiding the subject entirely with patients, faculty, friends, and his dakimakura.

Dan, who scored in the top 5% nationally on his Step 1 and graduated AOA, considers himself fortunate that women’s health was so disregarded in the medical curriculum – otherwise he would have been “boned for sure.” Still, he does wish that maybe he had as much knowledge about menstrual bleeding as he did about things like intraoperative vessel control or tourniquet indications for extremity hemorrhage, as (per Dr Honsfeld) all three are possibly associated with life-threatening exsanguination. Nevertheless, the young doctor thinks he has the gist of basic period management and could figure the rest out on the fly, or at least gather the equipment for someone else to do so.

“And do you wear a pad all the time, and then stick a tampon up there when you see bleeding?” the medical doctor mused. “I know wings on pads are important, for comfort and mobility – they say that on the commercials – but how much absorption do we really need here?”

As of press time, Dr Honsfeld was trying to figure out if girls poop every time they use the bathroom, I mean, since they are already sitting down, or if sometimes they just pee or what’s the deal with that.

At 9am Tuesday morning, medical student Colin G was making coffee in his PJ’s when he received a text from his Aunt Jan.

“Hi Colin, this is your Aunt Jan. How are you? I’m sure you’re just so busy right now. I hope all is well, thank you for fighting the Covid 19!! Be safe!”

As the text was designated “FYI,” Colin waited to respond until after he finished watching videos from his newly downloaded TikTok app.

This came just one day after receiving a similar text from his landlord. Colin says that while he appreciates the thanks, it is really the patients who motivate him to get up each day and play Xbox while watching a lecture on Zoom.

Medical students across the country have received similar messages of support from relatives, neighbors, and friends. However, controversy has surrounded the acceptance of this well-wishing, with many medical students unsure of whether to bask in the glory or explain the meaning of their designation as “nonessential personnel.”

“I mean, who am I to tell them I was pulled off my laparoscopic surgery rotation two weeks ago,” commented one third-year student.

Schools have scrambled to put together coursework to keep students busy during what many have seen as an extended vacation. These have included classes on virology, pandemic medicine, and the science of fighting your housemates for WI-FI bandwidth.

While the expected duration of the crisis remains unclear, students like Colin have expressed continued resolve to do their part.

“It feels good to know I’m playing even a small a role in this crisis. And if they do let me graduate early to help, I wouldn’t mind. I hear third and fourth year can be such a drag.”

CHANTILLY, VA – In the unfortunate but very possible event a surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations leads to a shortage of ventilators, the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) announced medical students will bravely bridge the gap by bagging intubated patients indefinitely.

“As it stands, states across the country have orders placed for ventilators but suppliers haven’t been able to keep up with the demand, and they may not be available when coronavirus peaks,” said AMSA member and sixth-year medical student at University of Virginia (UVA) Elaine Harvey. “We, medical students, are ready to act. If we can hold a retractor for 14 hours straight while on one foot during a Whipple, then we can do anything. We will be your ventilators.”

Ever since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), nations all over the world have been implementing varying degrees of social distancing in order to “flatten the curve” and prevent their respective health care systems from being overwhelmed. However, supplies of surgical masks and N95 respirators are already running low in the United States, and health care professionals fear they will run low on something else in a surge: ventilators.

Ventilators can cost anywhere between $20,000 and $50,000. On the other hand, medical students have been considered dispensable up until now. Not any more.

“Medical students are young, dedicated, and passionate, with healthy immune systems and strong, strong sphincters able to withstand 48 hours of contained urine and stool,” explained UVA School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases Thomas Nelson. “Who knew the day would come that we found them essential health care workers? Thank you, med students. We salute you!”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Though Match Day celebrations have been canceled nationwide, that won’t stop fourth-year medical students from experiencing the shear joy of finding out where they will be constantly ruling-out novel respiratory coronavirus COVID-19 starting July 1st.

“As much as I would love my number one choice, I honestly would be happy at any of the COVID hotspots,” explained Georgetown University School of Medicine fourth-year student Amber Mering. “I got some great advice from my mentors. They said if I matched at the last coronavirus hotspot on my rank list, would I be happy working there? The answer is yes.”

Fourth-year medical student Sid Shah of David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA echoed that sentiment. “There are so many incredible outbreak cities and regions, it was so hard to create my rank order list. I’d be perfectly happy ruling out COVID-19 here in L.A., but it might also be cool to see what it’s like to be overwhelmed with patients at other programs say in New York City or Boston, anywhere really.”

Many physicians and surgeons agree the transition from medical student to intern is the toughest of all the transitions during one’s medical career, and that’s without an active pandemic plaguing the country and destroying everyone’s lives. But that won’t faze medical students. They can’t wait to be on the ground, ruling out every patient they’ll see from July 1st onward for COVID-19. More importantly, for the medical students who haven’t caught coronavirus, they are excited to know: Where am I going to catch it on my first day of residency?

“Oh boy oh boy oh boy,” Shah kept saying, obviously giddy, filled with anxiety and anticipation. “Wherever I’m going to be on July 1st, I can’t wait to get started. Been dreaming about this day my whole life. I look forward to getting my pager and being thrown into the contagious abyss without a mask. COVID-19 rule-outs until otherwise notified. Bring it on!”

In an unprecedented move, medical students at University of Woeisme have joined forces and staged the largest revolt ever executed on school grounds. Citing discontent with undocumented 100-hour workweeks, condescending patients, disparaging residents, being ignored by attendings, and lack of recess, the medical students decided that they couldn’t handle the harsh treatment anymore.

Ms. Dolores Sidero, the 4th year medical student who spearheaded the effort, disclosed, “We can no longer accept the status quo. Our school really left us no choice, and now they have to deal with the consequences.”

She went on to further explain the development and execution of the uprising. “Well, initially we planned a strike. Every 3rd and 4th year med student across the school was on board. We would walk out, and not return to our rotations until we got exactly what we asked for. I mean, how could the department function without the med students? But we realized that we didn’t want our grades to be affected.”

She continued, “We then discussed walking out en-masse each day around lunchtime for an hour, or at least running to get a snack at some point in the late afternoon, but we didn’t want our rank-list spots to be affected, since The Match is coming up soon. In the end, we came up with a brilliant plan. We determined that the most effective and impactful option would be loudly complaining to each other in front of the off-service intern. We fully expect that he will pass along our discontent. I mean, we complained really, really loudly. We were serious about it!”

Some of the medical students involved in the rebellion are hopeful that they have inspired similar action across the country. On asking the nearby off-service intern about the incident, he ignored the question as he was wearing headphones. When Ms. Sidero’s attending was asked about her attempt to incite an uprising, he responded, “Who?” As of publication time, no other residents or attendings that knew, or cared, about the revolt could be identified.