Commentary

COVID-19 pandemic from medical students’ perspective in Nigeria

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is present in nearly every country in the world. As of May 26, 2020, there were 8,063 cases in Nigeria and 5, 652,116 cases worldwide. These numbers attracted the attention of people more than other international news. In Nigeria, schools were closed and students were asked to study at home. Likewise, pre-clinical medical students were asked to do the same. However, medical students who are in their clinical years like myself though not qualified as healthcare professionals neither are they regarded as laypersons (Neto, et al., 2020). Therefore for these groups of medical students who were required to stay in the hospitals, things became complicated. This is because conventional medical knowledge, clinical care, and personal protective skills of these set of medical students have not been saturated, not to mention the unclear pathophysiology of the COVID-19 virus. Also, there was this issue of getting infected. This is because the dividing line that dichotomizes the global population into medical staff who provide care and patients who receive care has never been this thin. It has been noted that healthcare providers have more likelihood of not only getting infected but also spreading the virus (Chirico et al., 2020; Gallagher & Schleyer, 2020). This was a big source of fear for medical students.