Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the academics of medical students

Context: Almost every sector in the world is affected due to COVID-19 pandemic. Among them educational sector is the one which is also badly affected. Due to this pandemic, all the students across the world were forced to an online mode of teaching. Aims: The aim of this study is to assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic among the medical students on their academics. Settings and Design: This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study conducted in a teaching hospital, Guntur, in the month of October 2020. Methods and Material: A self-designed, semistructured questionnaire was circulated to all 600 students of the college through online social media groups. Statistical Analysis Used: The data were entered in to MS Excel and were analyzed statistically using SPSS 25 software. Results: Five-hundred and thirty-seven (89.5%) students responded from 600. Out of 537, females were 362 (67.4%) and 175 (32.6%) were males. Among them, 424 (79%) were using smartphones to attend online classes. Network issues were the main reason of disinterest; 439 (81.8%) of the students followed by lack of interaction during classes for 319 (59.4%). The problems raised were visual fatigue by 374 (69.6%) and auditory fatigue by 299 (55.7%). Two-hundred and eighty-six (53.3%) of them were not comfortable with online exams. Conclusions: As social distancing is one of the major barriers against COVID-19 pandemic, online classes were acceptable but the network issues being faced by many students must be addressed. Teachers must take an initiative to make the sessions more interactive and interesting.