On the Issue of Holding Meetings of Student Scientific Study Groups of a Medical University During the Period of Unfavorable Epidemiological Situation
This paper considers the «problem of choice» of holding meetings of student scientific circles of the departments of operative surgery with topographic anatomy (OKHITA) and medical informatics and statistics (MIIS) N.N. Burdenko VSMU. This topic is currently very relevant, since the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection continues in Russia and around the world. At the beginning of the article, the information on the use of specialized electronic programs and electronic educational environments in the complex educational process is provided; the issues of their use at various stages of distance learning during an unfavorable epidemiological situation are analysed. However, according to the authors, very little attention is paid to additional aspects of the complex educational process, which are various student comeptitions, student scientific circles and student scientific societies. The aim of the work was an attempt to determine the form of meetings of the Council of People's Commissars of departments of various orientations (theoretical and practical), to determine the attitude of the respondents themselves – representatives of the teaching staff and students to the form of holding meetings of the Council of People's Commissars, depending on the epidemiological situation, and also to choose the most suitable electronic educational environment or computer program. The objects of the study were 50 employees of various departments of N.N. Burdenko VSMU (from among the teaching staff, who made up 1 group of subjects) and 100 students of the medical faculty – 2 and 4 years (who made up the 2 and 3 groups of subjects). The study was based on anonymous questionnaires. It was found that regardless of the direction of the department (practical – OKHITA or theoretical – MIiS), many respondents advocated the traditional (face-to-face) meetings of the Council of People's Commissars, subject to the normalization of the epidemiological situation. However, as it worsened, the majority favored remote, online, meetings of the Council of People's Commissars. An «interesting» result was obtained when processing the results of choosing an electronic platform for holding meetings of the Council of People's Commissars. So, despite the presence in N.N. Burdenko VSMU, specialized electronic educational environments, the «winner» and a kind of choice of respondents was the computer program «Zoom». The obvious choice of university staff from among the teaching staff and students makes it possible to recommend this program as a kind of «platform» for holding meetings of student scientific communities and circles.