It has been 7 months since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world at a global scale. Even though hundreds of vaccines are under development since then, the COVID-19 pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down. The lockdowns and social distancing norms are still intact and strictly to be followed. Leaders of school have accepted the new normal of education and are adapting new education plans and systems to meet latest pandemic demands. Medical schools have also started e-learning according to the new norms and have gone digital in an unprecedented way- both in the terms of classes and in the terms of the type of clinical care students are learning about. COVID-19 is changing medical education and the replacement of in-person clinical education with online equivalents is causing many challenges not only for the institutions but also for the medical students. 

The pandemic has forced medical schools to return to basics and to better consider the main skills that students need to learn to reshape their educational experience. One of the most significant changes implemented was the broad cancellation of in-person medical courses, most of which were replaced by filmed lectures or live streams. Furthermore, many faculty have stressed the irreplaceable importance of attending in-person class, lauding the real-time input and back-and-forth that occurs in class that is impossible to recreate in online fora.

COVID-19 is changing medical education and while this is okay for the first and second year students who are anyway engaged in classroom-based activities that have now gone online, the bigger challenge is for the third and fourth year medical students who are more likely to be engaged directly with the patients. It is compulsory for them to have hands on clinical practice and practical exams and assessments. Medical universities throughout the world are conducting such training remotely via talk-through sessions or simulations but it’s obviously less effective than conducting a real physician training. David Muller, M.D, dean of medical education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Fierce Healthcare that Mount Sinai students have continued to conduct clinical education in-person for its third and fourth year students, as there are few viable alternatives. And, he said, these students must realize that COVID-19 will be something they need to prepare for as physicians themselves. “COVID is here to stay,” Muller said. “Even once we’re all miraculously vaccinated, this is going to become part of their clinical practice.” 

A new trend that is emerging in medical education during pandemic and certainly has been an interest of all clinical colleges is the union of telehealth and education.As students from all over the world are coming together  to help frontline health workers by participating in telemedicine activities, this is providing them opportunities get their hands on the clinical practice which they are missing out. Students who are better able to adjust to this particular COVID-19 scenario may demonstrate their ability to think beyond the box and change preconceived conceptions of how medicine should be practised.