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The paper intends to explore the lived experiences of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on their lifestyles and mental wellbeing.

Fourteen medical students from the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain, were enrolled, and their narratives were obtained. Data were analyzed and conducted using Colaizzi’s phenomenological descriptive method of enquiry.

The analysis identified two themes, along with nine subthemes, that were generated. The first theme focused on mental and social experiences, while the second focused on lifestyle changes. During the pandemic, students had time to reflect on themselves and started to think positively about their lives, although they felt fearful, uncertain, stressed and anxious due to preventive control measures that were mandated, including social distancing and lockdowns. Participants’ lifestyles changed generally negatively, as they adapted to the preventive measures, rendering them physically inactive and exposing them to unhealthy food and disturbed sleep.

The findings provide an insight into the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lifestyle and mental wellbeing of medical students. Educational institutes need to offer their students both short as well as long-term health, social and mental support to overcome the impact of the pandemic on their lives.

The study directs attention to the psychological conditions experienced and knowledge management practices leveraged by faculty in higher education institutes (HEIs) to cope with the shift to emergency remote teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. By focusing attention on faculty experiences during this transition, this study aims to examine an under-investigated effect of the pandemic in the Indian context.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to analyze the data gathered in two waves through 40 in-depth interviews with 20 faculty members based in India over a year. The data were analyzed deductively using Kahn’s framework of engagement and robust coding protocols.

Eight subthemes across three psychological conditions (meaningfulness, availability and safety) were developed to discourse faculty experiences and challenges with emergency remote teaching related to their learning, identity, leveraged resources and support received from their employing educational institutes. The findings also present the coping strategies and knowledge management-related practices that the faculty used to adjust to each discussed challenge.

The study uses a longitudinal design and phenomenology as the analytical method, which offers a significant methodological contribution to the extant literature. Further, the study’s use of Kahn’s model to examine the faculty members’ transitions to emergency remote teaching in India offers novel insights into the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on educational institutes in an under-investigated context.