IMPACT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN THE TRAINING OF SURGICAL POSTGRADUATES, IN TEACHING MEDICAL COLLEGES AND HOSPITAL ACROSS KARNATAKA, INDIA

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Purpose of the study Post Graduate surgical training is a well-structured, surgically oriented program which helps in training and grooming of PG students to excel as surgeons and teachers in the future. COVID-19 pandemic has altered the lives of the whole medical fraternity to say the least, but this impact over the PG Training programs has been enormous, especially on the surgical fraternity. Our aim was to understand the impact of covid-19 pandemic in the training of surgery residents in hospitals across Karnataka and to come up with a suitable solution to mitigate the effect of covid 19 pandemic on the training programme. An online survey of 11 questions with sub-questions ha Design ving multiple choice answers were circulated amongst post-graduate students in surgery department and faculty members to study the impact of the pandemic in post-graduate surgical training. 156 PG trainees and 55 trai Results ners participated showing there was significant impact on elective and emergency surgical training. Majority of the surgical trainees haven't performed elective or emergency surgeries required for their level. 78% responded that there was inadequate exposure to Post-operative and in patient care. 89% said their clinical skills were inadequate and 75% r e s p o n d e d t h a t p o s t g r a d u a t e s a r e m e n t a l l y s t r e s s e d a n d h a v e l o w c o n f i d e n c e . Conclusion Covid 19 pandemic had a significant impact on the surgical post graduate training programme on trainee as well as on the trainers, across Karnataka. As a result of the pandemic, most of the young postgraduates are mentally stressed with low confidence in performing or assisting surgeries and in clinically evaluating patients. The Government and medical council should take serious consideration of the plights of PGs and come up with a suitable solution to control the damage and to be prepared in future to face such a problem with minimal effect on training programmes