Impact of COVID-19 on orthopaedic residents in South India: a survey

Abstract

Background: Since the outbreak of COVID-19 and its exponential spread throughout India, a lot burden has fallen upon the healthcare workers and in turn on the resident doctors who were posted on Covid duties. Increased risk of contracting the virus, limited patient inflow, suspended elective surgeries continued to be a reason of concern for most orthopaedic residents throughout the country during the peak of the virus outbreak.

Methods: An anonymous online survey of framed questionnaire was sent to the resident doctors in South India in order to perceive the state of mind they were in.

Results: The survey was completed by 314, second and final year residents from 5 major cities in South India.22.8% residents said that elective surgeries were still withheld in their department.27.9% residents believed that online teaching modality was not sufficient and 39.5% residents did not feel prepared enough for surgery with it. While, 21.1% residents stated that there were no surgeries in last one week in the unit. As a result, 33.3% residents expressed themselves as definitely stressed out in the then scenario.

Conclusions: The era post COVID-19 has brought with it a lot of challenges, the most important being the psychological impact on the residents. It needs to be taken as the foremost interest in the teaching module or structure to make them aware on how to overcome it and formulate new methods to cope up with the valuable training time lost.