Nearly 200 final-year Rutgers New Jersey Medical School students will graduate early and be eligible to begin their residencies to help out state hospitals that are rapidly filling up as they treat patients afflicted with coronavirus, the university announced Saturday evening.

Students of the school, located in Newark, would normally have completed their required courses in April and graduated in May, but now the 192 students will graduate between April 10 and 21.

“I have total confidence that our students are ready to help the cause,” said Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Dean Robert Johnson said in a statement. “They have learned and trained at Rutgers and will be much-needed support in our nation’s health care system.”

The school is planning virtual graduation ceremonies, during which the newly-minted doctors will participate in the recitation of the Hippocratic oath, a centuries-old tradition for doctors beginning their careers.

The students were matched to their residency locations March 20 and most of them will begin on July 1, school officials said. It will be up to the residency locations to determine if the students can begin early.

Rutgers’ other medical school, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, is expected to follow suit in the coming days, according to the statement. Several other schools at Rutgers that train health care professionals are considering similar measures.

Rutgers, along with other universities across the state, moved classes online for the rest of the semester as the number of COVID-19 cases in the state continued to climb.

The university announced earlier this week that it would issue refunds toward a portion of what students spent on room and board for the spring 2020 semester.

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