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OUR PEOPLE,<br />
OUR MISSION<br />
A Ugandan Student’s Education in the Foil of the<br />
COVID-19 Pandemic<br />
Part I<br />
Written by Abraham Ddungu Matovu<br />
Global Health<br />
<strong>eMagazine</strong><br />
<strong>March</strong> 2022<br />
Medical Student, MakCHS<br />
I was in the second year of a five-year course to obtain a<br />
Bachelor’s degree of Medicine and Bachelor’s degree of Surgery<br />
when the president of Uganda officially aired on television<br />
and radio that our beloved country was under attack from an<br />
invisible enemy, one that our own gallant army could not defend<br />
us from; an enemy that required the populace to retreat from the<br />
battlefield in order to survive. The president, his excellency Yoweri<br />
Museveni, informed the country that this enemy’s behavior needed to be studied by our professional<br />
medical doctors in order to tackle it well. This enemy was the COVID-19 pandemic whose origins<br />
are reportedly traced to Wuhan City in China. He thus declared a nationwide lockdown on all<br />
political, social, and economic events on <strong>March</strong> 18, 2020. This meant that all learning institutions<br />
were paused to reduce the rate of disease spread. I left the university and headed home to go<br />
through the lockdown with my family.<br />
A Note from Dr. Sadigh<br />
Reflections on 2021<br />
Highlights<br />
Nursing Division<br />
SARS COV-2 Pandemic<br />
and Us<br />
Unification<br />
Condolences: Paul Farmer<br />
Art to Remind Us of<br />
Who We Can Be<br />
There ensued a cantankerous period of uncertainty as an increased cumulative number of positive<br />
COVID-19 tests was reported every day and the death toll only grew higher with the country<br />
running short on medical equipment and drugs. This led to extension of lockdowns in bits by the<br />
president. It was like a drug prescription that he did not want to force down citizens’ throats,<br />
but rather administered it in periods of three weeks, four weeks, two months as per his scientific<br />
advisory judgment. I never got COVID-19 but many friends and families were devastated by the<br />
viral disease. We were kept out of school for a record seven months! I used this time to read books<br />
and venture into a few agribusinesses particularly, coffee and watermelon trading, which was an<br />
awesome experience. My watermelon business enabled people to access the craved vitamin C<br />
which boosted their immunity. As a medical student, I played a part in sensitizing people in my<br />
community of Sembabule district located in central Uganda about the Standard Operational<br />
Procedures including the wearing of face masks and social distancing.<br />
In October 2020, medical students were allowed back to university by the president as there was<br />
a need to train more soldiers for this war against COVID-19, and doctors were the soldiers. I was<br />
part of this team that reported to school in October 2020. My academic incarceration by the<br />
pandemic seemed to be finished. I was immediately ushered into a new online system of education<br />
which robbed the sweet touch of physical studies. We began Zoom lectures as practical sessions<br />
became increasingly inaccessible. Through this entire hustle and bustle, I was able to complete the<br />
interrupted second year of medical school.<br />
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Swan on the Housatonic River (Rose Schwartz)<br />
16
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