A Rapid Review of the Reopening of Schools in this COVID‐19 Pandemic? How Ready are We in Nigeria?

Reopening schools raise several ethical issues, including safety, privacy, autonomy, vulnerability. Some countries have gradually reopened their schools with explicit guidelines for safety. The safe reopening of schools demands sensitivity to community inequities. We aimed to conduct a rapid review of the strategies adopted in the reopening of schools in some countries amid the Covid-19 and highlight the lessons learned and to consider the feasibility of some of the existing Nigerian guidelines on school reopening. A rapid review technique using PubMed search was conducted using the combination of the following keywords: Covid-19, school, reopening along with a Google search using the phrase ‘schools reopened in COVID-19 pandemic.’ Ten articles met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Eight countries namely China, Taiwan, South Korea, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Australia, and Israel were identified. All the countries started with phased reopening and a reduction in class size. Wearing masks was mandatory in some countries. Hand hygiene and strict cleaning of high-touch surfaces were ensured. The Nigerian government’s guidelines towards the reopening of schools sound good, but the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness need to be objectively assessed and contextualized across all tiers of the government and at all levels of development to avoid COVID-19 resurgence

Improving Surgical Skills of OBGYN Residents through Partnership with Rural Hospitals: Experience from Southeast Nigeria

Background: surgical burden of disease is enormous in sub-Saharan Africa where conditions amenable to surgery also contribute to high maternal mortality ratio in the region. Training of specialists in Obstetrics and Gynaecology must include acquisition of requisite surgical skills. Aim: To evaluate the impact of clinical rotations at rural hospitals on the clinical knowledge, and surgical and administrative skills of residents in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Subjects and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study using mixed methods involving resident doctors in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Nigeria who had undergone rural postings. Information was obtained from consented residents (June 2013 to February 2015) using a questionnaire and focused group discussion. Data was analyzed using Epi info (CDC, Atlanta USA). Results: Thirty-four questionnaires (89.5%) were analyzed; 70.6% were junior residents. Junior residents had a 900% and 460% rise in the rates of emergency and elective caesarean sections they performed, and had similar increases with regard to gynaecological procedures. Senior residents had a 100% and 80% rise in performance of total abdominal hysterectomy and myomectomy respectively. Seventy-five percent of all the residents believed that their surgical skills improved tremendously while 87.5% of the senior residents believed their administrative skills greatly improved also. Conclusion: Residents in Obstertics and Gynaecology at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki believed that supervised clinical rotations in rural hospitals offered them an opportunity to improve on their clinical knowledge and surgical skills. We advocate an objective assessment of the skills and knowledge of the residents against the claimed subjective improvement.Keywords: Clinical and surgical skills, Rural posting, Resident