← Back to portfolio

Cap and Gone

Published on

“Waiting in the wing” position

At 11 a.m. on March 31, 135 University of Massachusetts medical school graduate students were all wearing white coats, sitting nervously in front of their computers awaiting for their first-ever virtual graduation to begin on Zoom. They were not greeted by their usual clinical trials, but by the remote spring commencement to be held two months earlier. The ceremony was livestreamed via Facebook Live and Zoom. Chancellor Michael F. Collins conferred the degrees as Vice Provost of Student Affairs Sonia Chimienti announced each graduate.

Andrew El-Hayek is one of these MED students. Just one week before the date of the spring commencement was officially confirmed, he thought he was ready to graduate. But when he actually sat in front of the computer, he realized it all happened too suddenly, like a whirlwind -- the commencement had been scheduled for [date], his 28th birthday. Instead the rushed remote commencement was held in advance, which means El-Hayek would have to celebrate his birthday in his apartment at Worcester by himself.

“It was so crazy,” El-Hayek laughed. “I was ready for something to change, I guess, but I also wasn't anticipating things changing that drastically at the same time.”

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the fourth-year UMMS students, who have completed all their training and degree requirements, as well as graduating M.D. students from Harvard University, Boston University and Tufts University, have all been given the option to receive their diplomas before their scheduled graduation date in May. The universities’ decisions came in response to a request from Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who cited an expected escalation in local health care workforce needs.

“We decided to graduate medical school students early because it was surge planning underway,” said UMass Chancellor Michael Collis. “And the time to prepare for a surge in patients is not when the surge actually occurs, it's in advance, so that we made the decision to go ahead. And we recognize that this could be a valuable resource of medical care.”

Dr. Collis mentioned that approximately 700 medical students among the four schools were slated to graduate during spring. “They could be making a bigger contribution, but it was still a volunteer opportunity [that] they could decide whether they wanted to do or not.”

El-Hayek expected to be one of the medical workers to provide clinical care during this pandemic. He has spent six years being well-trained and serving the community. But gradually, he began to feel anxious and worried about this early graduation plan. UMass was arranging for medical students to voluntarily sign up for working at the local hospitals after graduation, but there was actually no need for a large number of medical students to participate in the fight against COVID-19. Of the more than 100 students who graduated from UMass, only less than half of them actually started working in the hospital, and the rest of the graduates were put on standby. El-Hayek is one of those waiting in the second group.

“UMass has certainly made a big deal publicly, about graduating all of us early and making us available, but then they only really took some of us,” El-Hayek said. “We all are willing to work, but they just cut it off at a certain number.” He found it challenging to be placed on standby. “I was really hoping to be able to help and join the workforce,” El-Hayek explained.

Before the early graduation announcement, El-Hayek was preparing for the “Match Day” ceremony, in which third-year and fourth-year medical students find out where they matched for residency. He was also making plans to travel to Europe with friends. Because of the sudden early graduation ceremony and the COVID-19 outbreak, El-Hayek felt frustrated because all the things he’d planned were disrupted.

“We were a very close class and we really cared about each other,” he said. “We were supposed to be celebrating each other together, but we didn't get to, and this very bizarre ceremony was the best that it could be.”

The past few weeks have felt like a haze, clouding seniors’ minds and making it difficult to concentrate on even the easiest tasks. Affected by the coronavirus outbreak, all schools have changed their graduation ceremony’s format, to options that include postponement, holding graduation via Zoom, cancellation, and advancing the ceremony for medical students. Students who were preparing to graduate this spring are feeling a range of emotions as their college careers come to an abrupt end. All the universities’ announcements came after the Centers for Disease Control released recommendations for limiting mass gatherings, since the events can inadvertently spread COVID-19 to new communities.

The changing of spring commencement has truly devastated many graduates. Their four-year college journey ended with a whimper and not a bang.

New role transition

Hundreds of new MDs are helping alleviate a dire shortage of health care providers in COVID-19 hotspots across the state. While some of them are deploying into roles of transition – from a medical student to a frontline doctor; others are starting their residencies two months early.

Right after the week of remote commencement, Kendra Lastowka was standing in the coronavirus ICU floor at UMass Memorial Hospital. Before she got the chance to put on her cap and gown, the outfit was replaced with a heavy protective suit, goggles and a mask.

“It's been so quick,” Lastowka says. “Graduating two months early prevented me [from having] the time that I need to prove to myself — like, I'm a doctor now, I'm not a med student. The actual role isn't too much different from being a fourth-year med student, like a brand-new intern, basically. But the feeling that I'm the doctor now is definitely one with more responsibility.”

On the first day of entering the hospital, Lastowka’s palms were sweating. Fortunately, the ICU floor was proceeding in an orderly manner. She was doing the typical duties of a medical team members: help admit new patients, run molecular and serological tests on people to see how they're doing and diagnosing them properly.

“I was nervous,” Lastowka recalled. “I didn't really know what to expect and didn't know how I could be helpful. I didn't know what the hospital in general is going to be like.” As a medical worker who came to the hospital to fight against the coronavirus just after graduation, Lastowka was inexperienced. She felt that although she wanted to help with patients, she was not fully prepared.

“I tried to get all the information that I can from my patients and then keep a running list of things that I don't understand and either bring it up later to people that I’m working with or just find some time to quickly research it,” Lastowka added. What is more challenging for her is the high intensity of work -- from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., the 12-hour-long night shifts and an unexpected working area. She was expecting to follow her career path and work in the hospital’s operating room after graduating. Her chosen field, surgery for sports injuries, would be more scheduled and procedural. However, in the intensive care unit, where Lastowka is now stationed, most of the patients are on breathing machines, and are severely sick.

To her comfort, the new medical staff in the ICU floor included some classmates who graduated with her in advance. While working in the hospital, they were constantly learning new medical skills. “I think that the one of the biggest feelings that everybody in our class is feeling right now is that we're really grateful that we're able to help out,” Lastowka said with a smile.

Rushed goodbye

The likelihood that graduation ceremonies will be canceled strikes a harsh chord for students who have spent their lives working toward their college degrees. At the end of March, Jocelyn Ding, a senior at Tufts University, received a notice that the physical graduation ceremony would be changed to an online event. At that moment, she decided to buy a ticket back to China. The second she received the Office of President’s announcement about graduation, Ding sent out a message to her family that the ceremony was changed to online. She was in a complicated mood.

“The remote commencement has really broken my heart,” Ding said with a frustrated tone. “I had to say goodbye to this city much quicker than I thought.” She has been studying in the United States for six years. To celebrate her graduation from college with her, her parents and three younger siblings had bought tickets to visit. During her stay in the United States, Ding has mentioned her campus life to her parents many times, and wanted them to see the place where she had spent the last four years of her life. But now that plan has been ruined.

Instead, she booked the ticket, purchased masks, packed her luggage, emptied the apartment where she’d lived for three years, and then embarked on the plane back home. All these things happened in less than three days. Ding was flooded with busy schedules and did not even have time to consider how she felt about losing the graduation ceremony. When she finally landed at the Beijing airport, she realized that her college career was over.

“That graduation ceremony is probably the biggest thing for me,” Ding said. Four years ago, Ding’s parents were unable to attend her graduation ceremony of high school because taking care of her siblings; so, they all hoped to cherish this opportunity to witness the significant moment when Ding received the degree certificate. “I feel so sad that I haven't even had a chance to hug to my friends in person. I made phone calls to most of them to say goodbye when I sorted my luggage, and I don’t even know if I’ll have a chance to see them again.”

Ding said that she had studied hard for four years not only for the graduation ceremony, but for the opportunity to wear the gown and graduation cap as well. She felt that her college career had not drawn a satisfactory full stop and would always have this regret. Not only that, she had developed the habit of outdoor long-distance running during her senior year in order to participate in the Boston Marathon before leaving the United States. Ding got used to spending more than half an hour running from campus to the Charles River after completing her schoolwork. Due to the effect of epidemic, her plans to run the marathon have been put on hold, maybe forever.

“Failure to attend the spring commencement made me feel that my college career was incomplete,” Ding chuckled, but then her demeanor quickly returned to normal. “I’ve been seen people turned their tassel during commencement to confirm a newfound graduate status, I also wanted to try it. It was a very special experience to me, but I do think the school has done the best thing to ensure our safety.”