Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T23:01:03.490Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A COVID-19 necessity or the future of medical education? An evaluation of online psychiatry tutorials for medical students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

C. Wyke*
Affiliation:
Department Of Undergraduate Psychiatry, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
S. Butler
Affiliation:
Department Of Undergraduate Psychiatry, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Introduction

Following the national lockdown in the UK in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we instigated regular online tutorials for fourth year medical students undertaking their psychiatry placement.

Objectives

The aims of these tutorials were threefold: to ensure that students covered a range of key psychiatry topics, to enable them to have the opportunity for interactive tutorials with experienced psychiatrists and, not least, to create a sense of continuity and connection with their tutors and peers across the mental health block.

Methods

Each student was allocated to a tutorial group comprising 10 – 15 medical students and a psychiatrist facilitator. These groups met weekly for 7 consecutive weeks at an agreed time for 60 – 90 minutes via an online platform and all covered the same allocated topic each week. We evaluated these groups via an online survey sent to the students following the programme.

Results

The students rated the tutorials on average as 4.5/5 on whether they met the defined learning outcomes. On average the students did not consider that the virtual format made a significant difference to their learning, but this disguised a wide range of views that were expressed via a comment box.

Conclusions

The evaluation of this project supports the use of virtual tutorials as a valuable learning tool but educators need to be aware that student views’ on these can be varied and so, long-term, a blend of virtual and face to face learning is most likely to meet the needs of all students.

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.