Research Education, Distance Learning, and the COVID-19 Era
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FACULTY VIEWPOINT
Research Education, Distance Learning, and the COVID-19 Era Marsal Sanches 1 Received: 16 June 2020 / Accepted: 28 October 2020 # Academic Psychiatry 2020
Over the past two years, I have had the pleasure of running regular didactic sessions with our psychiatry research track residents. Sometimes, those sessions are held in a traditional journal club format, with one resident responsible for the presentation of the article, followed by an open discussion on the content of the paper and, in particular, its methodological aspects. Other times, we do a around-the-table discussion of a specific paper, usually a reflective piece on the directions psychiatric research seems to be heading towards. That was the case last week, when we discussed a review article focusing on the limitations and perspectives related to different approaches we can use to conceptualize the psychiatric diagnosis [1]. So far, nothing new. Except for the fact that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recommended social distancing measures, our department, as many others, had to convert most of our residency didactic activities to distance learning. Instead of meeting in person for a literal around-the-table session, we met online, using one of the several available video conference platforms. I am not particularly tech savvy but did not think it would be a problem. By now, I have performed telehealth appointments extensively and have participated in different video conferences and virtual meetings, and things usually seem to go fairly well. Every now and then there were issues with someone forgetting to mute their microphone while another person is speaking, as well as a poor internet connection that would cause some of the participants to have their images frozen. Nothing that could not be easily fixable. This time, however, it was different. As I started to speak, I noticed that virtually everyone had not only their microphones but also their videos in “off” mode. I could not see the faces of those who were present in the session and, worse, could not say who was paying attention and who was not and even whether or not they were hearing what I was saying. Some
* Marsal Sanches [email protected] 1
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Houston, TX, USA
people had called from their phones instead of joining the sessions from their computers, and that added an extra problem: in addition to not being able to see those participants’ faces, it was not even possible to know for sure who they were, as they were identified just by their respective phone numbers and not by their names. As I tried to ask questions to the audience about the topic we were discussing, there were usually long gaps, and at times some participants would make comments through the chat feature of the platform we were utilizing, instead of speaking up. After a while, I no longer could resist and asked the residents why they were keeping their videos off. Was it because the connection was poor? I heard the most curious an
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