Virtually Possible: Medical Student Rehabilitation Rotations During a Pandemic.

ABSTRACT: The novel coronavirus 2019 pandemic has led to new dilemmas in medical education because of an initial shortage of personal protective equipment, uncertainty regarding disease transmission and treatments, travel restrictions, and social distancing guidelines. These new problems further compound the already existing problem of limited medical student exposure to the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation, particularly for students in medical schools lacking a department of physical medicine and rehabilitation, approximately 50% of medical schools. A virtual medical student physical medicine and rehabilitation rotation was created to mitigate coronavirus 2019-related limitations and impact on medical education. Using audiovisual technology, students had the opportunity to participate in clinical inpatient and outpatient care, live-streamed procedures, and virtual didactics, develop and showcase their clinical knowledge and reasoning skills, and become familiar with the culture of the physical medicine and rehabilitation residency program. Adaptive educational approaches, including integration of the flipped classroom model, success, pitfalls, and areas for improvement will be described and discussed. Providing nontraditional methods for physical medicine and rehabilitation education and exposure to medical students is crucial to maintain and promote growth of the field in this unprecedented and increasingly virtual era.

Migrant autonomy and wilfulness amidst the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic at the Tijuana border

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States and Mexico in March 2020, both the pandemic itself and the measures taken to contain its spread produced potentially devastating effects on the lives of migrants in Tijuana. Qualitative data from interviews with eight Honduran migrants sheltering in place in Tijuana reveal the fragility of the city’s network of migrant service providers in the context of a border closed to non-essential movement, and ensuing repercussions for the migrants that they serve. However, beyond questions of access to basic necessities such as food, shelter and health services;protection from criminal violence;or complications to legal processes and visa status, the data provided by these eight migrants offer insights regarding migrant autonomy: aside from the undeniable frustration evoked by the pandemic and the measures taken to control it, migrants also exhibit a persistence and inventiveness seen in their willingness to wait, their resolve to maintain their projects of migration, a shift in their attention from the future to the present, their general resourcefulness in problem solving, and a hidden agenda of humour that functions as a subtle form of resistance. Together our observations show that in spite of appearing to be trapped, with hopes thwarted, migrants continue to be social agents, and continue to represent a wilful social force in Tijuana.