Challenges facing medical education in psychiatry during the COVID-19 pandemic

摘要

Medical education has been drastically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical students were removed from clinical duties for upwards of 16 weeks at Canadian medical schools, while postgraduate trainees were required to quickly adapt to new forms of learning to conform with infection control requirements.1 Virtual medical education (i.e. lectures and small group sessions via videoconferencing) became the new and reasonable norm, while the resumption of clinical duties came with significant modifications.1 Surgical training programs described challenges with providing traditional surgical skills training during the pandemic, but have attempted to implement adaptations such as virtual clinical skills training.2 Nonsurgical specialties that rely heavily on physical examination skills also described similar challenges, again adapting with virtual learning modalities (i.e. videoconferencing at the bedside).3 Many medical fields have also shifted to virtual patient care when feasible using videoconferencing tools, altering the process of traditional clinical learning.