Analysis of the effectiveness of the implementation of digital technologies in the educational process of medical HEIs: challenges, optimization

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the more intensive use of digital technologies in higher medical education. The purpose of the study was to analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of digital technologies in the educational process of Ukrainian medical universities, to identify the current challenges e-learning faces, and to propose potential ways of optimization. General scientific methods (for example analysis, synthesis) specific pedagogical methods (specification, abstraction, comparison forecasting) were used for the research. The results outline the main advantages of using digital technologies in the medical higher school system. Attention is also drawn to the main challenges that have a certain negative impact on the educational process. Among the latter, problems with the practical training of future doctors were noted since distance learning does not provide an opportunity to fully implement skills building component. The results also highlight possible ways to solve the problems of using digital technologies in medical higher education institutions. It is proposed to introduce to use not only distance learning technologies, but to combine them with the traditional approach and independent learning. It is emphasized about further studies, as empirical measurements of the effectiveness of distance education in the medical field. And, this effectivenessstill needs to be ultimately proven.

Distance Learning For Military Doctors in Crisis Situations: The DILEMMA Cross-Sectional Study Results

“…Understanding the needs and requests of students in the field of new teaching methods, in particular digital and/or distance ones, will make it possible to better adjust the teaching process, determine the needs for teacher training, increase their technical skills and create conditions for better student engagement (Girdzijauskienė et al, 2022;Holubnycha et al, 2022;Budko et al, 2023). It is clear that the war in Ukraine will continue for some time and the distance education component, especially in the context of advanced medical education, will remain significant (Jain et al, 2022;Srichawla et al, 2022;Vasianovych et al, 2023).…”

“…Distance education in medicine has both advantages and disadvantages, the most important of the latter is the lack of practical activities under the supervision of a teacher directly in the clinic (Vasianovych et al, 2023). However, this drawback can be partially eliminated by using a combined form of teaching with the possibility of access to the patient during practical classes or using telemedicine (Poberezhets et al, 2022).…”

“…The large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has only reinforced these trends (Poberezhets et al, 2022;Sherman et al, 2022;Budko et al, 2023;Remez, 2023;Vasianovych et al, 2023). It should be noted that the proportion of doctors who were trained distantly at the Faculty of Retraining and Advanced Training at UMMA steadily increased from 11% in 2019 (before the pandemic) to 22% in 2020 (first year of COV-ID-19 pandemic), 42% in 2021 (continuation of the pandemic) and reached a maximum in 2022 -64% (full-scale Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory) (Kozak et al, 2021).…”