ABSTRACT
Objective: It has raised drastic changes in the routine flow-through of daily life since the beginning of the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic. One of these is also the education and training of life from the cradle to the grave. We aimed to investigate the pandemic's impact on the dermatology residents' knowledge, skill, and experience levels in this study. Material and Methods: This descriptive research was conducted on dermatology residents from Turkey. The demographic characteristics, the residency duration, teledermatology use, number of outpatients, bedside visits, diagnostic diversity among inpatients, and bed occupancy rates were recorded. Before and after the pandemic in various dermatology-related issues, self-assessment levels of competence were also questioned with the visual analogue scale. Results: A total of 88 residents, 57 (64.8%) women, were included in the study. Sixty nine (78.4%) residents have worked in a pandemic hospital, 81 (92.0%) of the participants thought the pandemic had a negative effect on residency training. Issues such as the decrease in occupancy rates of dermatology service and diagnostic diversity of the inpatients, interrupted physicians' bedside visits, markedly reduced training time, and the inability to conduct theoretical exams reinforced this negative perception (p=0.005, p=0.023, p=0.003, p=0.011, p<0.001;respectively). There was a significant decrease compared to the expected level in the issues such as biological agent therapy, phototherapy, and dermato-surgery and dermatoscopy, although it varied according to the residency duration (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our study revealed that the pandemic affects the dermatology residents more negatively in terms of practical skills and experiences rather than theoretical knowledge level.