Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The defining feature of 2020 will be the early and mid-stages of the covid-19 pandemic, declared by the World Health Organisation on 11 th March. Rapid worldwide exponential spread continues and by 15 April, more than 1 900 000 cases and 123 000 deaths had been reported worldwide (WHO, 2020). Health services have coped to varying degrees. One common feature has been the withdrawal of routine care (Iacobucci, 2020a) and 'non-essential' staff including learners, although many have returned to undertake care roles. As the likely timeframe for stabilisation of health services becomes clearer, certainly in the United Kingdom (UK) (Iacobucci, 2020b), medical educators need to rapidly get the teaching of the next generation of health care workers back on track if they are to enter health services as confident and competent practitioners in 2020 and 2021. Although a 'whole world' experience, the effects of covid-19 sit in national contexts. We detail the issues for the UK in re-starting and re-inventing medical education, noting that the principles, if not necessarily the detail, will be common across the world.
Highlights
In a healthcare crisis, it is appropriate for the initial focus to be on the immediate life-saving actions
All parties need to ensure that Medical Education is a core component of the NHS recovery plan nationally, regionally and locally with clear recognition of the critical timelines involved, including a commitment to a September 2020 return at the latest
Medical student support and guidance structures need to be adjusted to the new reality and made far more robust that they have been in the past
Summary
It is appropriate for the initial focus to be on the immediate life-saving actions. The crisis has itself driven changes in clinical practice which may change the future for which we are training these students For this to happen medical educators will need to work with and have support from Governments and professional regulators in the coming months and years. Medical students in the penultimate year are required to be exposed to critical learning involving patient contact in a variety of care settings They have limited time to make up for lost opportunities. Today’s penultimate year students due to graduate in summer 2021 will have missed several months of clinical attachments and will return to disrupted placements They still require to be competent and confident to enter work and discussion is critical as to how and when they can achieve and demonstrate competence and whether this can be fully achieved by normal graduation times.
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