Teaching medical interns during Covid-19 pandemic: Explaining the lived experiences of clinical instructors

Abstract

Background The corona virus pandemic not only endangered the lives of many people, but also affected many organizations, including medical education. One of the challenges has been maintaining the quality of clinical education. Depending on the situation clinical educator adopted different strategies. Education changed from the patient bed to virtual training and blended education. Objective The purpose was to explain the lived experiences of clinical educator from education to interns in corona virus pandemic. Method Study was using phenomenological method. The participants were clinical educator who taught interns during the Covid 19 pandemic. Sampling was done purposefully and ended with data saturation. The data were obtained through semi-structured telephone interviews with 11 male and female participants with different specialties. Data were analyzed by Colaizzi descriptive phenomenology. Result Five final themes were created to describe the phenomenon of clinical education during the pandemic, focusing on virtual or combined training. These final themes were "Virtual education is an inadequate prerequisite", "Education tensions in crisis", "Platform for progress crisis", "The shadow of organization and structure affecting crisis education" and "Transformed educational beliefs and attitudes ". Conclusion The results showed that education during the pandemic has been experienced positively and negatively.