The impact of COVID‐19 on oral surgery training

Abstract

Aim Coronavirus disease, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), originated in December 2019 from Wuhan, China. This virus has spread worldwide, with over 16 million cases and over 650,000 deaths. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) has resulted in significant impact on the livelihoods of the British public and has had implications for healthcare delivery. The cancellation of elective procedures is likely to affect Oral Surgery specialty training. This paper aims to ascertain the extent of any impact of COVID‐19 on Oral Surgery specialty training. Material and Methods A survey was created for Oral Surgery specialty trainees in the UK. A variety of questions were used, including multiple choice, yes/no, Likert scales and free text answers. All questions were related to the impact of COVID‐19 on training. Results A total of 34 full responses were recorded. Results showed that COVID‐19 has had an immense impact on Oral Surgery training, with most trainees recording high anxiety levels regarding the future of their training. The overall experience of most trainees involved a reduction in logbook procedures, cancelled study days, courses or conferences. Conclusion Though oral surgery training has been deficient during this period, some trainees reported positive experiences while redeployed in other fields or specialties. In addition, we highlight the significant effect on trainees’ mental health. Most trainees suggested a training period extension to remedy deficiencies. From this paper, we identify the wide‐ranging effects of the pandemic, and Oral Surgery trainees now await decisions on the future of specialty training.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Postgraduate Training of Doctors in the United Kingdom: A Narrative Review

“…Of the studies included in the review, 17 discussed the results of surveys completed by trainees and distributed by a number of different organizations [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Two of the surveys [2,3] were completed by foundation doctors, a doctor who will be in their first two years of working following graduation, within a single region in the UK.…”

“…Two of the surveys [2,3] were completed by foundation doctors, a doctor who will be in their first two years of working following graduation, within a single region in the UK. The remaining 15 studies [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] were national surveys of trainees within a single specialty, facilitated by the training bodies responsible for the training within each of those specialties. These studies produced quantitative data from the answers to the survey questions and qualitative data as they included an option for free text responses, allowing trainees to express specific concerns or impacts that they felt.…”

“…The impact of organized formal teaching being changed to a virtual platform was investigated by one study [24]. Surgery was the specialty that had the greatest number of studies ( 14) on the topic [4,5,[8][9][10][11][14][15][16][17][18][19]21,23]. Four were not associated with any particular specialty [2,3,22,24].…”

“…NHS hospitals in England were told to stop all non-urgent elective surgery for three months [28] with guidance from the Federation of Surgical Specialties [29]. The number of studies included in this review highlighted the reduction in trainees gaining operating experience during this time across a broad range of surgical specialties [8,9,11,[14][15][16]. There was a consensus from trainees that the lack of operator experience would require an extension to training time in order to achieve the required competencies [4,12], which was the case for one in eight surgical trainees according to one study [10].…”

“…The remaining outpatient services were almost all converted to telemedicine [ 19 ]. This not only disrupted the delivery of outpatient services but also resulted in less exposure for trainees to face-to-face consultations This reduced the opportunities available for completing workplace-based assessments as reported in two studies [ 9 , 11 ]. This, however, provided trainees with the opportunity to develop their skills in conducting telehealth consultations, which will be something that they will continue to build on as hospitals look to continue with the model introduced during the pandemic with a mixture of face-to-face and telehealth outpatient appointments [ 19 ].…”