COVID-19 Era: Medical Trainees’ Changing Lifestyle; a Global Threat for the Future of Medical Professionalism

Abstract

Medical trainees’ lifestyle has been changed particularly in the recent decade because of a group of health-related, social, and educational, variables. The emergence of COVID-19 and its effects on a wide variety of areas are such current cases. According to the published reports, the orientation of some changes has NOT been in support of healthier lifestyles (e.g., reduced interpersonal relationships, decrease in physical activity and so on).1, 2 Surely, as a warning and a matter of concern, such changes could affect our trainees’ qualifications regarding their professional performance. Academia provides an opportunity for performing developmental and/or preventive strategies that could help foster and maintain such qualifications in line with our social responsibility. Now, it seems that we require wise and in-time interventions- including but not limited to educational ones- for mediating side effects of the issue in the future. Despite its various dimensions, academic settings could responsibly approach this ongoing event through formal/informal curricula.

Keywords

• medical student
• covid-19
• life style
• professionalism
• education