Coordinated responses of academic medical centres to pandemics: Sustaining medical education during COVID-19

Abstract

Background: The Corona Virus has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). We state the consolidated and systematic approach for academic medical centres in response to the evolving pandemic outbreaks for sustaining medical education. Discussion: Academic medical centres need to establish a 'COVID-19 response team' in order to make time-sensitive decisions while managing pandemic threats. Major themes of medical education management include leveraging on remote or decentralised modes of medical education delivery, maintaining the integrity of formative and summative assessments while restructuring patient-contact components, and developing action plans for maintenance of essential activities based on pandemic risk alert levels. These core principles must be applied seamlessly across the various fraternities of academic centres: undergraduate education, residency training, continuous professional development and research. Key decisions from the pandemic response teams that help to minimise major disruptions in medical education and to control disease transmissions include: minimising inter-cluster cross contaminations and plans for segregation within and among cohorts; reshuffling academic calendars; postponing or restructuring assessments. Conclusions: While minimising the transmission of the pandemic outbreak within the healthcare establishments is paramount, medical education and research activities cannot come to a standstill each time there is a threat of one.

Coronavirus outbreaks including COVID-19 and impacts on medical education: a systematic review

“…Some universities have shifted face-to-face classes to online education to provide various courses and programs, and some have replaced the live clinical exposure to the virtual one. 26,32 This adjustment might be difficult for both students and instructors, and therefore might impede the progress of medical education.…”

“…While it is important to continue medical education, academic medical centers should also consider the effectivity of methods used in order to align with the adjusted medical curriculum Kelly et al COVID-19 outbreak and impacts on medical education timeline as well as infection control measures. 26…”

Tips for pandemic response planning for Internal Medicine training programs

“…Over the past several weeks, more and more is being written about the impact of the virus on various training programs and their trainees (Balakrishnan et al, 2020;Cleland et al, 2020;Goel and Sharma, 2020). Despite this, there is still a lack of literature regarding how programs may identify various challenges and then combat them.…”

Assessment of the Academic Satisfaction of Graduate Students During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic, In An Internal Medicine Department.

“…During the last week of August 2020, more than 23 million of con rmed cases and 810,000 deaths were reported (1). One of the groups with the highest risk of SARS-CoV-2 contagion are healthcare workers, including training staff, which entails immense challenges to ensure the and learning process (2)(3)(4), in particular, when seeking to maintain social distancing measures, one of the most effective interventions to prevent disease transmission (5,6).…”

“…In the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital tools has been essential to maintain fast and e cient knowledge exchange, and to achieve the modi cation of patterns of social relationship, consumption and education (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14). Its use in medical education requires rapid adaptation and transformation of educational strategies within the medicine schools (4,(15)(16)(17).…”