Learning to nurse during the pandemic: a student's reflections

‘Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to carry on that counts.’

I recall with a great sense of clarity the first moments when coronavirus hit the headlines. As much as I hoped that it would amount to nothing, there was a part of me that diligently followed the World Health Organization's daily updates and epidemiology reports with concerning pessimism. It quickly transpired that the coronavirus was not merely one that would have minimal impact and carry on its jolly way. Sure enough, what started as an epidemic with pandemic potential soon evolved into a global pandemic that, as we now know, would change the world as we knew it.

Human beings, as a species, do not like change. We are creatures of habit and become increasingly unsettled when a stimulus (be it external or internal) jars with our status quo, our homeostatic balance, our equilibrium. That said, the riots and violent scuffles that played out in supermarkets throughout the UK were testament to our inability as a species to cope with a sudden disturbance to normative convention.