PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Brabaharan Subhani
AU  - Dilushi Wijayaratne
AU  - Saroj Jayasinghe
TI  - Lessons from the frontlines: a junior doctor’s experience of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in a resource-limited setting
AID  - 10.1136/medhum-2020-012109
DP  - 2021 Sep 01
TA  - Medical Humanities
PG  - 380--383
VI  - 47
IP  - 3
4099  - http://mh.bmj.com/content/47/3/380.short
4100  - http://mh.bmj.com/content/47/3/380.full
SO  - J Med Humanit2021 Sep 01; 47
AB  - 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.