Socially Distant Medical Education in the Face of COVID-19
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COMMENTARY
Socially Distant Medical Education in the Face of COVID-19 Chirag Vasavda 1,2
&
Byron K. Ho 1,3 & Ashwini Davison 1,4
Accepted: 13 October 2020 # International Association of Medical Science Educators 2020
Introduction COVID-19 has profoundly altered daily life across the world. For those of us in healthcare, it has changed not only how we care for our patients and conduct research, but also how we teach and learn medicine. In an urgent effort to slow the spread of the virus, medical institutions across the world have had to suspend or dramatically limit in-person education. However, it remains essential to continue medical education across departments, residency programs, and medical schools. Not only must we continue to learn and share information to address the crisis at hand, but we must also sustain our physician pipeline. Months later, faculty are still struggling to move their curricula online, many of whom are also caring for patients combatting the novel virus. Given the possibility of future waves of infection, we must prepare to more effectively teach remotely since it is unclear when we may be back together inperson. The challenges ahead are complex and demanding, but we are optimistic that an effective transition online is possible. As we rethink and restructure medical education, we are also finding ways to better it for the future. How institutions respond to COVID-19 will not only impact this current cohort of medical students and physicians, but may also influence medical education for years to come. Even before COVID-19, aspects of medical education had already begun to migrate online [1, 2]. Many American medical students already watch recorded lectures at home and supplement their learning with online resources such as
* Ashwini Davison [email protected] 1
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
2
The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
3
Department of Dermatology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
4
Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
SketchyMedical [3], Pathoma [4], and UWorld [5]. Similarly, residents and attendings use online training modules and resources to prepare for licensing exams and fulfill continuing medical education (CME) requirements. However, there is more to medical education than just didactics. Many curricula integrate evidence-based strategies to enhance learning, such as team-based exercises, interactive clinical cases, and real-time quizzing [6–8]. In contrast to lectures, these other forms of pedagogy traditionally required in-person class-time. Now, COVID-19 is forcing medical education to move entirely online whether we are ready or not. This undertaking will demand significant creativity and resources, but we argue that the transition will be easier if two major needs are met: deliberate interaction between educators and learners, and an institutional
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