For our first game, we were extra cautious about every move. We played under the budget, but lost due to too many outbreaks. We realised that we were too scared to spend money to remove disease cubes from cities, which eventually led to a chain reaction. Our total expenditure was QR599,000 (out of QR950,000), and our instructor advised us that it is not only important to spend under the budget, but also we must try to spend up to the budget too. This is because, in real life, future budget is dependent on current expenditure.
During the second game, we won using QR832,500. This time around, we shuffled the infection cards properly before starting the game, treated diseases, built research stations in prime locations, and shared more knowledge.
I can't believe that we were able to learn so much and reflect deeply, just by playing a board game over and over again for a month! Monday mornings have been absolutely fantastic with the 'edutainment'. Throughout the game, we were able to learn from each other, improve our leadership skills, develop a plan together, and most importantly we were able to become more patient. We learnt how to deal with finances efficiently. In a lot of countries, the health care sector is financed by taxpayers' money, making it important for us to be honest about our expenditure.
The Pandemic board game was mostly about reactive strategies (for example, dealing with outbreaks and epidemics). As future public health professionals, I think now we must start considering prevention measures, like improving sanitation, access to health care, and vaccination campaigns, to prevent or lessen the severity of these outbreaks in the first place.
Overall, my experience with the board game has been fun and amazing (and useful too). Get your own Pandemic board game here, and try playing it!
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