Stanford Medicine doctors and nurses protested Friday over the distribution of coronavirus vaccinations to frontline workers.
Protesters said vaccines have not been given to some doctors who are in close contact with coronavirus patients.
Instead, vaccinations have been given to some administrators and doctors who do not interact with COVID-19 patients.
The university used an algorithm to determine who should get the first vaccine doses on Friday, but that algorithm was faulty.
“Residents and fellows were essentially not included in the first round of vaccines despite working 80 plus hours per week in the hospital treating COVID-19 patients,” Dr. Earth Hasassri, a psychiatric medical fellow at Stanford, said in a Twitter post.
Stanford Medicine said earlier this week it planned to distribute the vaccine as recommended by the federal government, prioritizing “those who provide direct care and service to patients, those who are at the highest risk of being exposed to COVID-19 and those who have an elevated risk of complications from the disease.”
A spokesperson for Stanford Medicine issued an apology to the program’s residents, fellows and other front-line health care workers Friday after the protest.
“We take complete responsibility for the errors in the execution of our vaccine distribution plan,” Stanford Medicine spokeswoman Lisa Kim said in a statement. “Our intent was to develop an ethical and equitable process for distribution of the vaccine.”
Stanford Medicine also said it will change how the vaccine is distributed going forward.
