Managing Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The RCSI Bahrain Experience

Abstract

The pandemic of Coronavirus disease- 2019 (COVID-19) introduced great challenges to the higher education sector and at the same time opened the door for future opportunities. This review aims to present the experience of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain in managing teaching and learning during COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic, the university implemented several initiatives in ensuring that final year students graduate on time and quality of assessment in a fully digitised environment. The guiding principle for the university as the examination were redesigned, was to ensure that they remained valid to ensure students could demonstrate achievements of the core learning outcomes and be safely assessed as competent graduates. In achieving these goals, the university has well-developed formal and informal mechanisms to ensure the student voice is heard and listened to, and it was of paramount importance to ensure that this was continued and enhanced during these times. While university was successful in managing this unprecedented situation, more work must be done on analysing the author’s experience, and that of others, to implement the needed changes to ensure student access to learning, without compromising their safety or that of the staff. The university sees the current impetus to provide education through technology enhanced learning as an opportunity to expand and diversify learning opportunities and resources for students. In universities such as ours, which has only healthy subjects, practice become essential components of the programme, making a blended model of face-to-face and online delivery the ideal fit. Keywords: COVID-19, Learning, Pandemic, Students, Universities