TY - JOUR T1 - Lessons from the frontlines: a junior doctor’s experience of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in a resource-limited setting JF - Medical Humanities JO - J Med Humanit SP - 380 LP - 383 DO - 10.1136/medhum-2020-012109 VL - 47 IS - 3 AU - Brabaharan Subhani AU - Dilushi Wijayaratne AU - Saroj Jayasinghe Y1 - 2021/09/01 UR - http://mh.bmj.com/content/47/3/380.abstract N2 - COVID-19 has stressed healthcare systems across the globe. We present the experience of an intern medical officer working in a tertiary care hospital during the first wave of the pandemic in Sri Lanka. Her narrative describes how the stress of the pandemic brought into sharp focus the strengths and weaknesses in the health system. We suggest some strategies to improve our health services as the world faces the second wave and an uncertain future. These include structural changes in healthcare services at institutional and national levels, focused educational programmes for healthcare professionals to impart generic skills of disaster management, and the development of telehealth services and computerisation of health systems. We believe that we must maintain this focus to ensure that our patients can be guaranteed quality healthcare in the future. ER -