Unlike the USA and Europe, ICU rotation is not a part of neurosurgical training in our
programs (11). COVID-19 hit our country a few months later after Wuhan. Unfortunately,
we did not use this time to provide extra training to our residents to work outside their
areas of expertise. Redeployment plans were prepared in haste without adequate
supervision or much regard for each doctor’s knowledge or mental health. Many
residents were not paid for the additional working hours. Many residents also complained
of inadequate testing, which raised their fears about being infected and transmitting
infection to their families. Redeployment in most hospitals was obligatory to make up for
the shortage of doctors. The public health system in our country faces the problem of
a shortage of physicians because of their emigration searching for better working
conditions (12). This shortage was exacerbated during the pandemic due to the increased
rate of infection among the medical staff and the tsunami of COVID-19 patients,
especially in the early time of the pandemic when the health authorities decided to isolate
all COVID-19 positive cases, even mild or asymptomatic, in the hospitals.