Abstract
Seemingly overnight, on the 12th of March 2020, healthcare systems the world over changed as the World Health Organisation deemed COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. I was moved directly into the fourth year of my medical studies without examination, and applied to work in one of the few field hospitals set up across the United Kingdom, designed to handle to worst case scenario of COVID-19. Here I tended to the most basic needs of patients as a care support worker and witness first hand the relentlessness of this awful disease. Being able to help and work in a role I was not familiar with has given me great insight into the needs of patient’s whether they are going home or in their final days of life. As the pandemic cools down and the incidence curve flattens, we have all been put on standby, hopefully not to be required again.
Highlights
Life as a British medical student changed dramatically within the space of a fortnight in light of the COVID-19 crisis
The days started at 6AM, after watering and feeding myself, I would enter the personal protective equipment (PPE) donning area, put on my kit for the day, which consisted of scrubs, a visor, fluid repellent surgical mask, apron and gloves before heading through to the ward known as the ‘red zone’
This area was a central corridor with branching rows of nightingale wards for hundreds of COVID-19 positive patients, built to prepare for the worst-case scenario the UK could face
Summary
Life as a British medical student changed dramatically within the space of a fortnight in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The UK’s national response to COVID-19 included the seemingly overnight construction of a series of field hospitals across the UK, called the Nightingale Hospitals.[5]. The Nightingale ward structure dates back to the time of Florence Nightingale and is eponymously named as such, utilizing long stretches of patient beds all within the line of sight.[6] My application was accepted in days and within the week I underwent induction to prepare me for what I might face.
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