Riding the Coronacoaster: Learning, Teaching, and Living at a Health Sciences Campus during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This collaborative autoethnography examines how we (four students and a professor of community-engaged research) used our experiences to make sense of life during COVID‑19. Engaging in a collective approach to autoethnographic writing, we highlight different perspectives of a cultural moment shaped by the science denialism and untruths that define US governmental practices and approaches to the pandemic. We share how we are dealing with COVID‑19 discourses that run counter to the scientific foregrounding of our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and health and medical sciences training, reflect on the role of the pandemic in shifting post-baccalaureate plans, navigate the lockdown while participating in racial justice protests in Minneapolis, and examine the experiences of being essential healthcare workers while in school. By situating these shifting ways of learning, teaching, and engaging as portents of the difficulties we may continue to face, we show the possibilities of narrative methods in imagining and implementing post-pandemic healthcare practices grounded on a praxis of community justice and collective care.