Online Foundation Course Program for First Year Medical Undergraduates Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic - A New Learning Experience.

Foundation programs are conducted in medical schools for undergraduate students, since they are naïve and unaware of the medical profession in depth. The program helps them to become familiar with the undergraduate medical training. The present intake of first year medical undergraduates had joined the institute amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and hence the foundation program had to be conducted through an online platform. The present paper is a description of the online program conducted in the institute and is aimed to focus on the pros and cons of using an online platform for conducting the program and the experience gained from it. The online foundation program was conducted over a period of 16 days through the Zoom© platform. The program was tailored to cater for the orientation of 175 students who were admitted for first year MBBS batch 2020-2021. Feedback from students was obtained through Google Forms© at the end of the program. The online program was conducted smoothly due to the dedicated efforts of all the team members. Sessions requiring hands-on training and physical field visits had to be omitted in the present program. Network connectivity issues were reported sometimes. The conduction of the online foundation course program was indeed a learning experience. The team work was well reflected in the feedback from the students, which revealed appreciation for the overall program. Many sessions went very well in the online mode; however, sessions on humanities and extracurricular activities could have been organized in a better way with the physical presence of the students.

Effectiveness of video modules in infection control trainings during COVID-19 pandemic: A quasi-experimental study in tertiary care institute.

BACKGROUND: Continuous pertinent trainings for infection prevention and control (IPC) measures are essential to ensure quality health-care services along with the safety of the health personnel. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the current study focusses on the utilization of explicated video modules training of all health-care personnel of the institute and assessment of the effectiveness of video training for IPC practices during COVID-19 pandemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A quasi-experimental study, one group pre- and posttest design, using Google Questionnaire forms was conducted at a tertiary care center. The training was assisted by trained tutors, and three in-house videos were demonstrated to the participants regarding specific IPC measures; "Do's and Don'ts;" "Hand hygiene and personal protective equipment's (PPE)" and "Environmental cleaning and disinfection." SPSS software version 23 (IBM Corp., N. Y., USA) was used for the analysis using the descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, Fisher's t-test, ANOVA, and post hoc Tukey's test. RESULTS: The level of knowledge increased significantly by 16% in the posttest. Statistically significant association between the levels of knowledge in pretest as well as posttest scores and age (P < 0.001), designation (P < 0.001), and years of experience (P < 0.001) was identified. The participants were satisfied with the video-assisted trainings and willing to use videos for revision. CONCLUSIONS: Video-assisted training modules similar to this study may be utilized to enhance the knowledge of various cadres of health-care staff regarding IPC practices.