Future Medical Student’s Perspective on Expectations of Medical School Learning Post-COVID

Abstract

The medical school experience for future medical students in the post-COVID era will be improved by the learning interventions utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic. The remote synchronous and asynchronous learning forms have been individually beneficial and detrimental for students and faculty alike. The future of medical school should include both these virtual elements and in-person elements in irreplicable experiences such as group learning, physical exams, osteopathic manipulative medicine, clerkships, and gross anatomy by dissection. A hybrid of all of these components will improve the student experience and help meet future students’ expectations of outcomes. Other curriculum elements should be reworked with the events such as COVID-19 and uncovering of bias and structural racism in medical schools. These have caused a significant shift in the curriculum and shed light on the bias and lessons learned in the post-COVID world. As a future medical student, my expectations have grown about what I can gain from a medical school education based on the learning outcomes that are available to me, and I look forward to the opportunity to be trained in the wake of the COVID crisis where I can create my own hybrid, individualized learning experience that will help me succeed in my goals.