COVID 19 Pandemic – Medical School Interview Hot Topics
COVID-19 is a hot topic that may well come up on medical school interviews. Questions about infectious disease is nothing new. The medical schools have asked about the zika virus, ebola and measles (to name a few) in the past. The trend is not to ask you factual questions about disease directly, but to give you a scenario in which some knowledge about the disease (for example how its spread and how this can be prevented) would allow you give an informed and evidenced based answer. They also like to add ethical dilemmas faced by not only patients, but also doctors and the government.
Here is an overview of the COVID-19 pandemic to date and some examples of how we think medical schools will test you. We also give you some medical school interview questions on the topic of COVID-19 to try.
Let’s start off with a few definitions. You need to be aware of what is meant when examiners use the words such as coronavirus, SARS, pandemic and COVID-19 for example.
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019.
It is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (the virus is also referred to as SARS-CoV-2). The virus was formally called "novel coronavirus 2019" or "2019-nCov"
A novel coronavirus (CoV) is a new strain of coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans.
COVID-19 is the official name for the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
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The photos below are from previous courses pre COVID-19 pandemic.
Start and progression of COVID-19
The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.
The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020, and a pandemic in March 2020.
As of 14 October 2020, more than 38.1 million cases have been confirmed, with more than 1.08 million deaths attributed to COVID-19.
How does COVID-19 spread?
The disease spreads most often when people are physically close. A range of 1.8m (6 ft) has been suggested.
It spreads very easily and sustainably through the air, primarily via small droplets and sometimes in aerosols, as an infected person breathes, coughs, sneezes, talks, or sings
It may also be transmitted via contaminated surfaces, although this has not been conclusively demonstrated. It can remain on plastic for up to 3 days but does not survive on cardboard for more than a day.
It can spread from an infected person for up to two days before they show any symptoms and also from people who have no symptoms.
People remain infectious for seven to twelve days in moderate cases and up to two weeks in severe cases.
What are the symptoms of COVID-19?
Symptoms of COVID-19 can be vague; the two most common symptoms are fever (88 percent) and dry cough (68 percent).
Symptoms that occur less often include fatigue, respiratory sputum production (phlegm), loss of the sense of smell, loss of taste, shortness of breath, muscle and joint pain, sore throat, headache, chills, vomiting, coughing up blood, diarrhoea, and a rash.
The UK government asks the public to look out for a high temperature, a new, continuous cough or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste, so it may be wise to remember these.
Among those who have symptoms, approximately one in five may become more seriously ill and have difficulty breathing.
Further progression of the disease can lead to complications such as pneumonia (an infection of one of both lungs), sepsis (a life threatening condition occurring because of the bodies response to infection) , septic shock (a severe response to sepsis in which the blood pressure drops), and kidney failure (when the kidneys stop being able to filter the waste products from the blood).
How do you test if a person has COVID-19?
The standard test for presence of SARS-CoV-2 uses RNA testing of respiratory secretions collected using a swab taken from the nasopharynx.
This test uses real-time rRT-PCR (Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) which detects the presence of viral RNA fragments. As it tests RNA its ability to detect how long patients have been infected in limited.
A number of laboratories and companies have developed serological tests, which detect antibodies produced by the body in response to infection.
How can we prevent COVID-19 from spreading?
For health care professionals who may come into contact with COVID-19 patients, using personal protective equipment (PPE) on exposed body parts reduces the risk of transmission of the virus.
Breathable personal protective equipment, such as face masks, may also offer a similar level of protection.
Healthcare professionals treating patients with COVID-19 are advised to use respirators with a protection level as least as NIOSH-certified N95 level with other personal protective equipment.
Strategies to try and prevent the spread of the disease also include social distancing, wearing of masks, washing hands, avoiding touching the eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands. Coughing or sneezing should be done into a tissue and disposed of immediately into a suitable waste container.
Social distancing measures try and reduce the spread of disease by minimising contacts between individuals. These include quarantine measures; restricted travel; and the closing of schools, offices, sports venues, pubs and restaurants, entertainment venues, cinemas, theatres and shopping centres.
Individuals may comply with social distancing methods by staying at home, limiting travel to a certain geographical area, avoiding crowded areas or gatherings more than a defined number of people, using greetings with no physical contact, and physically maintaining a distance from others.
The WHO recommend (and some countries mandate) individuals wear non-medical face coverings in public settings where there is an increased risk of transmission (for example in shops and on public transport) and where social distancing measures may be difficult to maintain. The face mask should limit the volume and distance that expiratory droplets can travel when released during talking, breathing and coughing.
Self-isolation can be recommended for patents with symptoms and their close contacts.
Hand washing is extremely important as soap not just only kills the virus but also stops it from adhering to the skin. When soap is not available an alcohol based sanitiser can be used.
Surfaces (such as keyboards, office spaces, bathroom areas and ATMs) should be sanitised with the appropriate disinfectant.
At the time of writing, no vaccine has completed trials to confirm efficacy and safety.
Screening for infected patients can be done by a temperature check using a thermometer. Attempts can be made to contain the disease, for example using track and trace methods. More extreme measures can be used to try and suppress the spread of the disease, such as local and regional lockdowns and travel bans.
Are they any treatments available for COVID-19?
Antiviral medications are under development for COVID-19, though none have yet been shown to be clearly effective reducing the rate of deaths from the disease
However, the antiviral drug remdesivir may have an effect the time it takes to recover from the virus.
The safety and effectiveness of convalescent plasma as a treatment option requires further research.
The WHO recommended treatment with systemic steroids (such as dexamethasone) for patients with severe and critical symptoms but continued to advise against their use for other less critical patients.
Medical School Interview Questions
Here are some medical school interview questions related to COVID-19 for you to try. Our medical school interview course has further banks of questions : -
How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect the life of an elderly patient who lives in a nursing home?
Do you think that face masks should be worn at all times by people outside their homes?
What do you think of the governments ‘track and trace’ for coronavirus patients?
You arrive at work in your local hospital and notice your ward is now filled with COVID-19 patients. However, PPE (personal protective equipment) has only been provided for doctors and not nurses or other staff. How do you proceed?
You are an intensive care consultant in the local NHS hospital. Your unit only has one bed left for COVID-19 patients. How are you going to decide which patient will be admitted to that bed?
You are the public health doctor advising local restaurants. What advice can you give them to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in their premises?
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