759 Maintaining Surgical Education and Team Morale During A Pandemic – Can A Virtual Educational Platform Deliver Effective Engagement and Personal Development of Non-Technical Skills?

Abstract

IntroductionThe COVID 19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges in healthcare, leading to a dramatic change in service provision and impacting surgical training.We developed a new educational timetable to maintain an ethos of education safely; focusing on providing an opportunity to develop non-technical skills and maintain reflective practice.MethodMicrosoft Teams was used in our department with two separate streams of weekly education; journal club with focus on developing critical evaluation skills, and a case based in depth discussion forum to develop presentation skills and evidence based management. A questionnaire was sent out after 10 weeks to evaluate the effectiveness and engagement.ResultsFrom 53 responses, 72% felt that their engagement in teaching increased with a virtual platform with an overall satisfaction of 88%. Reflective practice increased and 40% felt their non-technical skills improved. Overall, 68% preferred to continue learning virtually and 88% would recommend this to their peers. 92% felt that the platform played a pivotal role in helping maintain team morale during this period.ConclusionsThere has been good engagement with positive reflection and learning at a time of great change in the NHS benefiting training and non-training doctors. We recommend incorporating virtual platforms to provide education in all surgical departments.