The Medical College of Georgia (MCG) responded to the COVID-19 pandemic's challenges to medical education with a novel, comprehensive curriculum. The Pandemic Medicine Elective was an effective solution with a safe, virtual alternative to traditional clinical experiences. As the elective evolved to include pre-clinical students and service initiatives across Georgia, students and faculty navigated online platforms to execute critical community-based projects. This curricular development utilized an interdisciplinary approach by faculty across each of MCG's regional campuses. We describe the curriculum of the electives, the student initiatives, and lessons learned while quickly adapting curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Objective The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) is an important data source for observational studies. While there are guides to ensure appropriate study reporting, there has been no evaluation of NSQIP studies in vascular surgery. We sought to evaluate the adherence of vascular-surgery related NSQIP studies to best reporting practices. Methods In January 2022, we queried PubMed for all vascular surgery NSQIP studies. We used the REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely-collected Health Data (RECORD) statement and the JAMA Surgery (JAMA-Surgery) checklist to assess reporting methodology. We also extracted the Journal Impact Factor (IF) of each article. Results One hundred and fifty-nine studies published between 2002 and 2022 were identified and analyzed. The median score on the RECORD statement was 6 out of 8. The most commonly missed RECORD statement items were describing any validation of codes and providing data cleaning information. The median score on the JAMA-Surgery checklist was 2 out of 7. The most commonly missed JAMA-Surgery checklist items were identifying competing risks, using flow charts to help visualize study populations, having a solid research question and hypothesis, identifying confounders, and discussing the implications of missing data. We found no difference in the reporting methodology of studies published in high vs low IF journals. Conclusion Vascular surgery studies using NSQIP data demonstrate poor adherence to research reporting standards. Critical areas for improvement include identifying competing risks, including a solid research question and hypothesis, and describing any validation of codes. Journals should consider requiring authors use reporting guides to ensure their articles have stringent reporting methodology.