(KNSI) – The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on some of the most necessary people in our society: healthcare workers. From a rapid effort to research, test and produce a COVID-19 vaccine to New Yorkers clapping for doctors and nurses during shift changes, healthcare workers have been key in the fight against the pandemic. Their essential role in this moment could translate to more young adults, or even people well into their careers, deciding that they want to contribute to human health as doctors, pathologists, researchers, nursing assistants or public health professionals.
“In the fall of 2020, which of course was [when] we were deeply into the COVID situation, we actually had an increase in the number of applications that we were getting for public health masters and doctoral degree programs,” says Dr. John Finnegan, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.
“Looking forward to the fall of ‘21, we’re also seeing another increase in applications,” Finnegan continued. “I believe we’re up to about 21 percent, 22 percent.”
Finnegan says this surge in interest has been seen by public health schools nationwide. At the University of Minnesota, the field of applicants for these programs is diversifying.
“About a third of the applications that we received for fall 2020 are folks from Black, Brown and Indigenous communities,” he said, adding that the majority of the applicants are also women.
“It’s, I think, good news going forward because the public health workforce really needs to be more diverse,” Finnegan said. “And we need more people who are working in public health because I don’t think COVID is going to be the last new emerging virus that we see in the world.”
“You can do almost anything”: Nursing programs still popular
In another area of healthcare, nurses often work closely with patients, including those who have severe COVID-19. At the College of St. Scholastica in St. Cloud, which offers a post-baccalaureate nursing degree and a doctor of nursing practice degree, nursing education is always in high demand.
“Those two programs have always been popular, and they continue to be very popular,” says Dr. Sheryl Sandahl, dean of the School of Nursing at St. Scholastica St. Cloud. She anticipates that over the next year, applications for those nursing programs will remain strong.
“It’s interesting hearing why they do come to nursing. Most of them, you know, it’s because ‘I want to make a difference.’ Some of them thought they wanted to be a nurse early, but then they changed their mind,” Sandahl said, adding that events like the pandemic could be reigniting that interest in potential students who, at some point, shied away from nursing, but now realize that they can do it.
Because St. Scholastica offers a nursing program for people who have already earned a bachelor’s degree, Sandahl says the students are often a bit older than standard college age and are invested in the communities they live in.
“The average age, at least for that cohort, is around 26,” she said. “So they tend to be invested in the community, may or may not be married, have children. They’re more mature. And so, they’re not likely to leave.”
It’s easy to see the physical and emotional toll a deadly pandemic has had on nurses, doctors and other healthcare providers who work with critical COVID patients day in and day out. I asked Sandahl if we might see lots of nurses leaving the field after the pandemic is over. Sandahl said there are lots of different career opportunities within nursing itself.
“We are seeing evidence that, for example, nurses are choosing to go a different path in nursing, so not necessarily leaving the field, but we have an informatics program, and there has been an increase in the numbers of nurses coming back to do graduate-level work around informatics, which takes them away from that direct patient care role,” Sandahl said. “They might find that at some point in their career, they go back to patient direct patient care, or they may not, but that’s the beauty of nursing — you can do almost anything.”
The pandemic might inspire people to become nurses. For some, it might lead them down a different path in healthcare, giving them a break from emergency rooms and urgent care. But there are others impacted by the pandemic in such a way that they can’t start their nursing journey yet, Sandahl said.
“We are seeing some students, the traditional students who are deferring,” Sandahl said. “They’re going to wait a year because of finances. And I’ve heard that with both [post-baccalaureates] and traditional students who want to be a nurse, and they still want to be a nurse, but because of the pandemic and finances, they have to put a hold on it.”
“Expect an uptick”: A delayed wave of new doctors
Nurses and doctors are probably the healthcare jobs most well-known by the general public — they’re the people who see patients face-to-face. Are more people interested in becoming physicians due to the pandemic as well?
“Tons of students are rejected for medical schools,” says Dr. Marina Cetkovic-Cvrlje, a biology professor at St. Cloud State University. “It’s an extremely, extremely competitive environment, so we always see big interest.”
Among other subjects, Cetkovic-Cvrlje teaches immunology, and she works with upperclassmen who may be interested in applying for medical school. And she’s not wrong: According to the Princeton Review, only about 41 percent of med school applicants are accepted each year nationally. While Finnegan mentioned that some medical schools might see the “Dr. Fauci Effect” bump up their applications, Cetkovic-Cvrlje says she hasn’t seen this increased interest yet because deciding and preparing to apply to medical school takes years. Though it may seem like longer, COVID-19 has only been around in America for a year.
“You’ll see the impact of the current situation in probably around two or even maybe three years,” Cetkovic-Cvrlje said of college upperclassmen who are readying to take the MCAT and apply for medical school.
The students who are about three years away from taking those steps are freshmen, and their interest in medicine may be emerging already. Alli Beste, a senior in biomedical sciences at St. Cloud State, says she’s seen more freshmen and first-term students joining the Medical Professions Association student group (of which Beste is president) than in previous years. Beste also said she has heard from her peers that they’re coming across more pre-medicine students on campus.
In addition to stoking interest in studying to become a physician, the pandemic has also brought “quiet” medical jobs into the public eye. Louise Millis, the medical laboratory science program director at St. Cloud State, says she has seen more students interested in medical laboratory and pathology-related programs.
“I am seeing more students that are finding their way into the lab,” Millis said. “A lot of people don’t realize that it’s an actual degree path with a career that you can go on.”
Millis says lab technologists, lab technicians and pathologists do important behind-the-scenes work in hospitals and clinics and don’t often directly interact with patients. However, the big role COVID-19 testing plays in fighting the pandemic has brought what Millis calls the quiet side of medicine out of the shadows.
“I would expect there to be an uptick across the board in healthcare, as this all kind of sinks in,” Millis said.
Perhaps students’ heightened interest in healthcare should be met with an increased interest in funding and maintaining public health work. That’s what Finnegan emphasizes.
“I see these enrollment issues and changes and the greater diversity of enrollment as a real plus for this country and for the state of Minnesota in the post-COVID world,” Finnegan said, “because I really do believe as we are going forward here, we are really going to need to look very much at the investment that we’re making in public health infrastructure.”
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