Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: Jun 9, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 9, 2020 - Jun 23, 2020
Date Accepted: Oct 26, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Oct 27, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
How effective is virtual medical teaching during the COVID-19 crisis? A review of the advantages and disadvantages.
ABSTRACT
Background:
In December 2019, COVID-19 emerged and rapidly transitioned around the world, becoming a global threat to current life. SARS-CoV-2 infection is characterised by a pneumonia of unknown aetiology. Transmission of the virus is high, and as a result, countries around the world have imposed rigorous public health measures, such as quarantine. In the United Kingdom, this has involved the suspension of medical schools. Medical school attachments are vital to aid students with the progression of their confidence and competencies as a future doctor. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, medical schools have sought ways to replace medical placements with virtual teaching.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to review all available literature regarding the application and effectiveness of virtual teaching for medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
A brief qualitative review based on the application and effectiveness of virtual teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic was carried out by referencing keywords, including: medical education, virtual teaching, virtual patients and COVID-19 from the databases of PubMed, Embase, Google Scholar and ResearchGate.
Results:
On analysis of available literature, compelling arguments were made in favour and against virtual teaching. Numerous studies demonstrated the strengths of virtual teaching which included the advancement of knowledge as well as increased accessibility and flexibility. In contrast, other studies displayed the need for new teaching formats, outside of the traditional lecture series, to increase internal motivation. Technical challenges and security breaches were identified as major weaknesses of virtual teaching.
Conclusions:
In these unprecedented times, medical schools have a duty to provide ongoing education to medical students. The continuation of teaching is crucial to allow the future graduations of doctors into society. To increase the effectiveness of virtual teaching, new interactive and secure forms of virtual teaching should be produced which further learning and drive motivation.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.