The first months of 2020 introduced, to many, the concept of a pandemic and the frightful consequences of new diseases across the world. Now, with all of the world’s countries newly acquainted with viral disease and protective measures, it’s time to look at how this epochal disease may have affected the future of medicine in the long run. In this short guide, we’ll examine how COVID-19 may help to change and improve modern medicine, leaving a positive legacy after months of turmoil and disruption across the world.
Protective Equipment
One of the key reasons why doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers have become ill – with many sadly dying – is because there’s been a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) in hospitals. As the world has begun scrambling to equip its health services effectively for the crisis of COVID-19, attention has been drawn to the supply chains that support hospitals and health infrastructure worldwide. The positive repercussion of this, experts hope, will be the strengthening of supply chains – including large warehouse stores of the kinds of equipment that the world will need if future pandemics threaten humanity once more.
Shielding Medicine
While the COVID-19 crisis has made headline news for half a year already, one of the results of thinking about infection and prevention in the modern, hyper-connected world has been to consider how else to shield patients. How can the medical industry, in light of the coronavirus, provide the best shielding for all patients in the future? Superbug outbreaks in hospitals are, after all, increasingly common worldwide. One way to change practice in this field is with better wound dressings. The best wound care is being developed in labs across the world in order to ensure open wounds are treated and covered instantly – leading to fewer cross-infections in hospitals.
Hand-Washing
Perhaps the leading piece of advice to have been shared during the COVID-19 crisis has been to wash one’s hands. This universal messaging has likely changed the habits of hundreds of millions of people across the world – some of whom may not have been diligent hand-washers before the coronavirus outbreak. In the long run, this change in behavior is likely to prevent the spread of future illnesses, as well as those illnesses that we currently suffer from – like the flu or the common cold. Better hand-washing will certainly save lives in the future.
More Nurses
A final repercussion from the pandemic that the world has been suffering from in recent months will be the onboarding of a new generation of nurses into the medical profession. With so much love and respect being afforded to all the key workers in hospitals across the country, this is a key moment for the industry in terms of applications. It’s to be expected that, inspired by the bravery and diligence of this current crop of nurses, young people will increasingly choose a career in medicine as their future vocation.
There you have it: four key ways in which we can expect the world of medicine to change as a result of the coronavirus outbreak that will come to define 2020.
