Development of a remote learning educational model for international Emergency Medicine trainees in the era of COVID-19

Aimee Tang,Joseph D. Ciano,John Acerra

doi:10.1186/s12245-021-00405-1

Abstract

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has pressured post-graduate medical education programs to shift from traditional in-person teaching to remote teaching and learning. Remote learning in medical education has been described in the literature mostly in the context of local in-country teaching. International remote medical education poses unique challenges for educators, especially in low-middle income countries (LMICs) who need continued Emergency Medicine (EM) specialty development. Our objective is to describe the development and implementation of our remote educational curriculum for EM trainees in West Bengal, India, and to assess trainee satisfaction with our remote learning curriculum.MethodsOur curriculum was developed by adapting remote learning techniques used in Western post-graduate medical education, conducting literature searches on remote learning modalities, and through collaboration with local faculty in India. We assessed resident satisfaction in our curriculum with feedback surveys and group discussions.ResultsThe remote educational curriculum had overall high trainee satisfaction ratings for weekly livestream video lectures and throughout our monthly educational modules (median ratings 9-10 out of a 10-point Likert scale). Qualitative feedback regarding specific lecture topics and educational modules were also received.ConclusionsInternational remote education in LMICs poses a unique set of challenges to medical educators. Residents in our study reported high satisfaction with the curriculum, but there is a lack of clarity regarding how a remote curriculum may impact academic and clinical performance. Future studies are needed to further evaluate the efficacy and academic and clinical implications of remote medical education in LMICs.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic has pressured post-graduate medical education programs to shift from traditional in-person teaching to remote teaching and learning
We hope in sharing our model we can offer a framework which can be replicated in other countries that would benefit from a remote learning model. This project was submitted to our IRB, and it was deemed to be exempt from review as it did not meet the definition for human subject research
The importance of continued medical education and specialty development becomes especially profound when dealing with lowmiddle income countries (LMIC), such as India, where

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has pressured post-graduate medical education programs to shift from traditional in-person teaching to remote teaching and learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has required medical educators across the globe to adapt their teaching approach from in-person teaching to remote teaching. Educational didactics for medical and surgical residencies have shifted to remote learning conferences in order to maintain social distancing and avoid large gatherings [2–5]. While inperson patient encounters serve as clinical education for resident physicians, there is a role for formal didactics to enhance clinical development [7]. It is unrealistic for post-graduate medical education programs to pause education for residents, as this would be disruptive to the overall structure of their residency education [2]

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