Challenges and Opportunities of Preclinical Medical Education: COVID-19 Crisis and Beyond
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COVID-19
Challenges and Opportunities of Preclinical Medical Education: COVID-19 Crisis and Beyond Uma Gaur 1 & Md Anwarul Azim Majumder 1 Keerti Singh 1
&
Bidyadhar Sa 2
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Sankalan Sarkar 1
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Arlene Williams 2
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Accepted: 17 September 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted face-to-face teaching in medical schools globally. The use of remote learning as an emergency measure has affected students, faculty, support staff, and administrators. The aim of this narrative review paper is to examine the challenges and opportunities faced by medical schools in implementing remote learning for basic science teaching in response to the COVID-19 crisis. We searched relevant literature in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar using specific keywords, e.g., “COVID-19 pandemic,” “preclinical medical education,” “online learning,” “remote learning,” “challenges,” and “opportunities.” The pandemic has posed several challenges to premedical education (e.g., suspension of face-to-face teaching, lack of cadaveric dissections, and practical/laboratory sessions) but has provided many opportunities as well, such as the incorporation of online learning in the curriculum and upskilling and reskilling in new technologies. To date, many medical schools have successfully transitioned their educational environment to emergency remote teaching and assessments. During COVID-19 crisis, the preclinical phase of medical curricula has successfully introduced the novel culture of “online home learning” using technology-oriented innovations, which may extend to post-COVID era to maintain teaching and learning in medical education. However, the lack of hands-on training in the preclinical years may have serious implications on the training of the current cohort of students, and they may struggle later in the clinical years. The use of emergent technology (e.g., artificial intelligence for adaptive learning, virtual simulation, and telehealth) for education is most likely to be indispensable components of the transformative change and post-COVID medical education. Keywords COVID-19 pandemic . Preclinical medical education . Online learning . Remote learning . Challenges . Opportunities
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic required a massive and rapid change in the way we deliver medical education, particularly to the junior years of the medical program. [1]
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Covid-19 * Md Anwarul Azim Majumder [email protected] 1
Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados
2
Deputy Dean, Quality Assurance & Accreditation, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
The global COVID-19 pandemic impacted every sphere of human life including medical education, resulting in the suspension of face-to-face teaching in medical schools across the world [2, 3]. Medical schools have adopted several innovative strategies in respon
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