We urgently call on you to provide Alberta’s student doctors immediate access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Failure to do so has placed these doctors-in-training and the vulnerable patients they treat at risk.

Medical students are our future doctors. They learn the art and practice of medicine in Alberta’s hospitals by providing direct care to our sickest patients.  Without question, they are among the highest-risk healthcare providers when it comes to COVID-19 exposure. These student doctors rotate through our emergency departments, operating rooms , ICUs, CCUs and hospital wards. Other allied health workers in these environments including staff doctors, residents doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, housekeepers and unit clerks were all immunized in the first phases of the vaccine administration.  

These future doctors perform many of the same duties as their allied health peers and are exposed to the same risks. Sadly, they have been forgotten in Alberta’s vaccine rollout. As per the federal government’s guidelines, their medical student peers in several other provinces were among the first to be immunized. There are roughly 1000 medical students in Alberta. Immunizing them now will not meaningfully impact the vaccine  rollout to other Albertans in need. It will however, offer these doctors-in-training peace of mind knowing both they, and the vulnerable patients they treat, are protected.

Please sign this petition and share it with your friends and family. We implore our political and medical leaders to protect our future doctors with the COVID-19 vaccine. They deserve the same protection as their local healthcare colleagues in the same working conditions and as their student peers across the country.