Twelve Tips for Transitioning Your Didactic Curriculum to the Online Platform in the Current COVID-19 Era and Beyond (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Titilopemi Aina ◽  
Barbara Nzegwu

BACKGROUND The novel coronavirus was first discovered in China, and it is now known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease caused by the virus is called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The symptoms of COVID-19 include, but are not limited to, fever, dry cough, myalgia, and dyspnea. Social distancing, isolation and quarantine have become critical to community mitigation of viral spread. And as a result, the use of video conferencing for work, meetings, and gatherings has become central to maintaining social distancing while continuing to accomplish tasks. OBJECTIVE To develop an alternative meeting space for medical education teaching sessions. METHODS 12-tips developed for transitioning your didactic curriculum to an online platform RESULTS Tip 1: Engage key stakeholders; Tip 2: Adapt your curricular content to an online platform; Tip 3: Select a Learning Management System (LMS); Tip 4: Organize content in the LMS; Tip 5: Select an online meeting platform; Tip 6: Create a virtual class schedule; Tip 7: Orient faculty and learners to virtual teaching/learning; Tip 8: Prepare for the teaching sessions; Tip 9: Navigate a virtual teaching session; Tip 10: Integrate audio and video into the teaching sessions; Tip 11: Encourage learner engagement virtually; Tip 12: Obtain feedback on your online sessions. CONCLUSIONS Video conferencing has emerged as a superior method to achieve our goal of medical education while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have found the Zoom meeting platform to be incredibly easy to use and highly effective. In this era of social distancing and staying six feet apart, virtual teaching sessions are critical. These twelve tips will help you adapt your teaching format to our new normal in graduate and undergraduate medical education. CLINICALTRIAL N/A

2020 ◽  
pp. bmjstel-2020-000671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinis Balmaks ◽  
Luize Auzina ◽  
Isabel Theresia Gross

The COVID-19 pandemic is posing new challenges for medical education and simulation practice given local social distancing requirements.This report describes the use of an online platform for rapid cycle deliberate practice simulation training that can be used and tailored to local COVID-19 pandemic restrictions as it allows for participants, facilitators and simulation equipment to be apart.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Kelly Kelly ◽  
Lie Rebecca Yen Hwei ◽  
Gilbert Sterling Octavius

Since the beginning of 2020, the world has been affected by the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The virus’ infectious nature pushed all sectors to implement social distancing measures in an effort to limit its transmission, including the education sector. We searched PubMed and Science Direct on June 12th and found 24 papers that are relevant to our review. After the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 is a global threat, various countries took a variety of measures to limit the disease spread such as social distancing, self-quarantine, and closing public facilities that hold large gatherings, including universities and schools. Hospitals started to prioritize services for COVID-19 cases. Medical education programs are also affected by this disease, but not continuing in-person classes outweighs any benefit from traditional teaching methods. The previous Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) pandemics have shown ways to shift medical education to online platforms. In the current pandemic, online meetings are being used to hold lectures, classes, laboratory practices, and clinical skills classes. For clerkship students, online platforms might not be feasible because this eliminates patient-doctor relationships, but it appears for now to be the only option. Some institutions have involved medical students in the frontlines altogether. We encourage all parties to constantly evaluate, review, and improve the efforts of continuing medical education, especially during this pandemic. Further research is needed to evaluate students’ performance after adopting e-learning and to discover the best methods in medical education in general and clerkship education in particular.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viknesh Sounderajah ◽  
Hutan Ashrafian ◽  
Sheraz Markar ◽  
Ara Darzi

UNSTRUCTURED If health systems are to effectively employ social distancing measures to in response to further COVID-19 peaks, they must adopt new behavioural metrics that can supplement traditional downstream measures, such as incidence and mortality. Access to mobile digital innovations may dynamically quantify compliance to social distancing (e.g. web mapping software) as well as establish personalised real-time contact tracing of viral spread (e.g. mobile operating system infrastructure through Google-Apple partnership). In particular, text data from social networking platforms can be mined for unique behavioural insights, such as symptom tracking and perception monitoring. Platforms, such as Twitter, have shown significant promise in tracking communicable pandemics. As such, it is critical that social networking companies collaborate with each other in order to (1) enrich the data that is available for analysis, (2) promote the creation of open access datasets for researchers and (3) cultivate relationships with governments in order to affect positive change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen W. Ottenhoff- de Jonge ◽  
Iris van der Hoeven ◽  
Neil Gesundheit ◽  
Roeland M. van der Rijst ◽  
Anneke W. M. Kramer

Abstract Background The educational beliefs of medical educators influence their teaching practices. Insight into these beliefs is important for medical schools to improve the quality of education they provide students and to guide faculty development. Several studies in the field of higher education have explored the educational beliefs of educators, resulting in classifications that provide a structural basis for diverse beliefs. However, few classification studies have been conducted in the field of medical education. We propose a framework that describes faculty beliefs about teaching, learning, and knowledge which is specifically adapted to the medical education context. The proposed framework describes a matrix in which educational beliefs are organised two dimensionally into belief orientations and belief dimensions. The belief orientations range from teaching-centred to learning-centred; the belief dimensions represent qualitatively distinct aspects of beliefs, such as ‘desired learning outcomes’ and ‘students’ motivation’. Methods We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 26 faculty members, all of whom were deeply involved in teaching, from two prominent medical schools. We used the original framework of Samuelowicz and Bain as a starting point for context-specific adaptation. The qualitative analysis consisted of relating relevant interview fragments to the Samuelowicz and Bain framework, while remaining open to potentially new beliefs identified during the interviews. A range of strategies were employed to ensure the quality of the results. Results We identified a new belief dimension and adapted or refined other dimensions to apply in the context of medical education. The belief orientations that have counterparts in the original Samuelowicz and Bain framework are described more precisely in the new framework. The new framework sharpens the boundary between teaching-centred and learning-centred belief orientations. Conclusions Our findings confirm the relevance of the structure of the original Samuelowicz and Bain beliefs framework. However, multiple adaptations and refinements were necessary to align the framework to the context of medical education. The refined belief dimensions and belief orientations enable a comprehensive description of the educational beliefs of medical educators. With these adaptations, the new framework provides a contemporary instrument to improve medical education and potentially assist in faculty development of medical educators.


Author(s):  
Anna Eleftheriou ◽  
Aikaterini Rokou ◽  
Christos Argyriou ◽  
Nikolaos Papanas ◽  
George S. Georgiadis

The impact of coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) on medical education has been substantial. Medical students require considerable clinical exposure. However, due to the risk of COVID-19, the majority of medical schools globally have discontinued their normal activities. The strengths of virtual teaching now include a variety of web-based resources. New interactive forms of virtual teaching are being developed to enable students to interact with patients from their homes. Conversely, students have received decreased clinical training in certain medical and surgical specialities, which may, in turn, reduce their performance, confidence, and abilities as future physicians. We sought to analyze the effect of telemedicine on the quality of medical education in this new emerging era and highlight the benefits and drawbacks of web-based medical training in building up future physicians. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unparalleled challenge to medical schools, which are aiming to deliver quality education to students virtually, balancing between evidence-based and experience-based medicine.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. B. Almeida ◽  
T. N. Vilches ◽  
C. P. Ferreira ◽  
C. M. C. B. Fortaleza

AbstractIn 2020, the world experienced its very first pandemic of the globalized era. A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is the causative agent of severe pneumonia and has rapidly spread through many nations, crashing health systems and leading a large number of people to death. In Brazil, the emergence of local epidemics in major metropolitan areas has always been a concern. In a vast and heterogeneous country, with regional disparities and climate diversity, several factors can modulate the dynamics of COVID-19. What should be the scenario for inner Brazil, and what can we do to control infection transmission in each of these locations? Here, a mathematical model is proposed to simulate disease transmission among individuals in several scenarios, differing by abiotic factors, social-economic factors, and effectiveness of mitigation strategies. The disease control relies on keeping all individuals’ social distancing and detecting, followed by isolating, infected ones. The model reinforces social distancing as the most efficient method to control disease transmission. Moreover, it also shows that improving the detection and isolation of infected individuals can loosen this mitigation strategy. Finally, the effectiveness of control may be different across the country, and understanding it can help set up public health strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Catching ◽  
Sara Capponi ◽  
Ming Te Yeh ◽  
Simone Bianco ◽  
Raul Andino

AbstractCOVID-19’s high virus transmission rates have caused a pandemic that is exacerbated by the high rates of asymptomatic and presymptomatic infections. These factors suggest that face masks and social distance could be paramount in containing the pandemic. We examined the efficacy of each measure and the combination of both measures using an agent-based model within a closed space that approximated real-life interactions. By explicitly considering different fractions of asymptomatic individuals, as well as a realistic hypothesis of face masks protection during inhaling and exhaling, our simulations demonstrate that a synergistic use of face masks and social distancing is the most effective intervention to curb the infection spread. To control the pandemic, our models suggest that high adherence to social distance is necessary to curb the spread of the disease, and that wearing face masks provides optimal protection even if only a small portion of the population comply with social distance. Finally, the face mask effectiveness in curbing the viral spread is not reduced if a large fraction of population is asymptomatic. Our findings have important implications for policies that dictate the reopening of social gatherings.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0272989X2110030
Author(s):  
Serin Lee ◽  
Zelda B. Zabinsky ◽  
Judith N. Wasserheit ◽  
Stephen M. Kofsky ◽  
Shan Liu

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to expand, policymakers are striving to balance the combinations of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to keep people safe and minimize social disruptions. We developed and calibrated an agent-based simulation to model COVID-19 outbreaks in the greater Seattle area. The model simulated NPIs, including social distancing, face mask use, school closure, testing, and contact tracing with variable compliance and effectiveness to identify optimal NPI combinations that can control the spread of the virus in a large urban area. Results highlight the importance of at least 75% face mask use to relax social distancing and school closure measures while keeping infections low. It is important to relax NPIs cautiously during vaccine rollout in 2021.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174462952110096
Author(s):  
Whitley J Stone ◽  
Kayla M Baker

The novel coronavirus may impact exercise habits of those with intellectual disabilities. Due to the mandated discontinuation of face-to-face research, investigators must adapt projects to protect all involved while collecting objective physical activity metrics. This brief report outlines a modification process of research methods to adhere to social distancing mandates present during COVID-19. Actions taken included electronic consent and assent forms, an electronic survey, and mailing an accelerometer with included instructions. The amended research methods were implemented without risk for virus transmission or undue burden on the research team, participant, or caregiver. Recruitment was likely impacted by the coronavirus-mediated quarantine, plausibly resulting in bias. Objective physical activity data collection can be sufficiently modified to protect those with intellectual disabilities and investigators. Future research designs may require greater participant incentives and the creation of in-home participation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 614-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hatcher

President Trump’s communications during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic violate principles of public health, such as practicing transparency and deferring to medical experts. Moreover, the president’s communications are dangerous and misleading, and his lack of leadership during the crisis limits the nation’s response to the problem, increases political polarization around public health issues of social distancing, and spreads incorrect information about health-related policies and medical procedures. To correct the dangerous path that the nation is on, the administration needs to adopt a more expert-centered approach to the crisis, and President Trump needs to practice compassion, empathy, and transparency in his communications.


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