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St Hugh’s students step up to join battle against COVID-19

As the NHS continues to fight the pressures brought on by COVID-19, St Hugh’s could not be more proud of its students who are using their skills by working with medical organisations taking part in a number of important projects.

The students include Stoyan Dimitrov, Chris Mason, Síle Johnson, Rex English, Cameron East, Sophie Roche, Kenzo Motohashi, Phil Cowie and Laura Wilkins.

Coronavirus Hub GP Practices: Stoyan and Kenzo have been working at GP practices providing an important service by seeing patients with COVID-19 symptoms, helping to keep high standards of infection control and assisting with administrative duties.

Emergency Departments: Síle and Chris have been working in the John Radcliffe and Horton General Hospital Emergency Departments (ED) in a variety of roles. These include streaming patients to COVID vs non-COVID ED based on their symptoms; assisting nursing staff with their duties; and acting as PPE buddies for staff requiring higher level PPE when attending high risk patients.

Asymptomatic Staff Screening Project: Stoyan, Chris, Síle, Cameron, Kenzo and Phil have been carrying out swabs and blood tests for a study screening staff members across Oxford University Hospitals to identify asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus. This will enable early identification, preventing ongoing transmission, and will identify presence of the antibody providing an estimate for the proportion of people who have already had coronavirus.

Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Trial: Rex and Sophie have been helping in a range of roles in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine including in the administrative team, where they have been taking blood and collecting other important measurements from participants in the trial.

Intensive Care Unit: Laura has been assisting the medical team in the Adult Intensive Care Unit at the John Radcliffe, acting as PPE buddy for staff requiring higher level PPE whenever they are entering the intensive care unit.