Reshaping ophthalmology training after COVID-19 pandemic.

Martina Angi,Luca Pagano,Nakhoul Nakhoul,Danilo Iannetta,Clara Montalbano,Catherine Dianne Reyes-Delfino,Cristián Cartes ,Piergiacomo Grassi,Andrea Govetto,Raffaele Raimondi,David Steel ,Argyrios Tzamalis,Alessio Montericcio,Emiliano Di Carlo,Francesco Matarazzo,Rahul Rachwani,Davis H Steel,Giulia Coco,Vito Romano,Sufiyan Shaikh,Michela Cennamo,Francesca Amoroso,Carlos Rocha‐De‐Lossada ,Francesco Sabatino,Mariantonia Ferrara,Ernesto Bali,Claudio Iovino,Giancarlo Dell’aversana Orabona ,Bernhard Steger,Kunal A Gadhvi ,Sibel Demirel,Davide Romano,Xavier Valldeperas,Elon H. C. van Dijk,Mario Damiano Toro ,Chiara Comune,Rajen K. Gupta ,Adrian Au,Mario R. Romano,Davide Borroni,Pasquale Napolitano

doi:10.1038/s41433-020-1061-3

Abstract

BackgroundThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on practical activities and didactic teaching of residents and fellows. This survey aimed to propose long-term changes for ophthalmology training based on the changes experienced by trainees and their perception of new training opportunities.MethodsAn online survey was distributed to ophthalmology trainees in multiple countries. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data.ResultsA total of 504 analyzable responses were collected from 32 different countries. The current impact of COVID-19 pandemic was described as “severe” by most trainees (55.2%); however, the future perspective was more optimistic as demonstrated by the greater number of responses reporting a presumed “moderate” (37.3%), “mild” (14.1%) or “slight” (4.2%) long-term impact. The vast majority of trainees reported a decrease ≥50% of clinical activity (76.4%) and >75% of surgical activity (74.6%). Although an initial gap in didactic teaching has been experienced by many (55.4%), regular web-based teaching was reportedly attended by 67.7% of the respondents. A strong agreement was found regarding the worthwhile role of web-based case-presentations in clinical training (91.7%), web-based discussion of edited surgical videos (85.7%) and simulation-based practice (86.9%) in surgical training.ConclusionsThis survey, focusing on trainees’ perspective, strongly reinforces the need to promptly include new technology-based training tools, such as web-based teaching, virtual surgical simulators, and telementoring, in long-term reorganisation of ophthalmology training to ensure its continuity and effectiveness, which would remain available even in the face of another unpredictable crisis within the health system.

Highlights

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), led to a global crisis withinMembers of the OphthaTraining Group are listed below Acknowledgements.health systems, which had a knock-on effect on all aspects of graduate medical education (GME), including residency and fellowship programs [1, 2]
Ophthalmology residents and fellows are, highly likely to experience significant restrictions in clinical and surgical opportunities for several more months. Another crucial area of GME, such as the didactic teaching, has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in the suspension or cancellation of traditional lecturing sessions, educational courses, and meetings/conferences
There are plenty of papers and reviews describing the impact of the current health emergency on ophthalmology practice with suggestions as to how it could be reorganised, we found a lack of studies focused on ophthalmology training and trainees’ experience and perspective

Summary

Introduction

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), led to a global crisis withinMembers of the OphthaTraining Group are listed below Acknowledgements.health systems, which had a knock-on effect on all aspects of graduate medical education (GME), including residency and fellowship programs [1, 2]. Emanuele, Milano, Italy 37 Eye Center, Humanitas Gavazzeni-Castelli, Bergamo, Italy ophthalmology is considered a high-risk subspecialty due to both the compounded risk of virus exposure to patients’ conjunctival and respiratory secretions during the close proximity ophthalmic examination and the typical highvolume outpatient clinics and theatre lists [4]. It follows that, once the strict restrictions of the first phase have been overcome, the subsequent phase of coexistence with the virus cannot be managed as a rapid and complete “return to normal”. This survey aimed to propose long-term changes for ophthalmology training based on the changes experienced by trainees and their perception of new training opportunities

Methods

Results

Conclusion