Twelve tips for teaching medical students online under COVID-19.

Universities worldwide are pausing in an attempt to contain COVID-19's spread. In February 2019, universities in China took the lead, cancelling all in-person classes and switching to virtual classrooms, with a wave of other institutes globally following suit. The shift to online platform poses serious challenges to medical education so that understanding best practices shared by pilot institutes may help medical educators improve teaching. Provide 12 tips to highlight strategies intended to help on-site medical classes moving completely online under the pandemic. We collected 'best practices' reports from 40 medical schools in China that were submitted to the National Centre for Health Professions Education Development. Experts' review-to-summary cycle was used to finalize the best practices in teaching medical students online that can benefit peer institutions most, under the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 outbreak. The 12 tips presented offer-specific strategies to optimize teaching medical students online under COVID-19, specifically highlighting the tech-based pedagogy, counselling, motivation, and ethics, as well as the assessment and modification. Learning experiences shared by pilot medical schools and customized properly are instructive to ensure a successful transition to e-learning.

First Into the Lifeboats: Protecting Medical Student Education During the Hahnemann University Hospital Closure.

The announcement of the closure of Philadelphia's Hahnemann University Hospital in June 2019 sent shock waves through the academic community. The closure had a devastating impact on the residents and fellows who trained there, the patients who had long received their care there, and faculty and staff who had provided care there for decades. Since its beginnings, the hospital, established as part of Hahnemann Medical College in 1885, was a major site for medical student education. The authors share the planning before and actions during the crisis that protected the educational experiences of third- and fourth-year medical students at Drexel University College of Medicine assigned to Hahnemann University Hospital. The lessons they learned can be helpful to leadership in academic health systems in the United States facing a diminishing number of clinical training sites for medical and other health professions students, a situation that is likely to worsen as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to weaken the health care ecosystem.

A Faculty Development Workshop for Planning and Implementing Interactive Virtual Case-Based Teaching.

Introduction: The virtual learning environment has become increasingly important due to physical distance requirements put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition to a virtual format has been challenging for case-based teaching sessions, which involve substantial audience participation. We developed a faculty development workshop aimed at teaching health professions educators how to use various interactive virtual tools within videoconferencing platforms to facilitate virtual case-based sessions. Methods: Two 90-minute workshops were piloted as a faculty development initiative. The facilitators demonstrated interactive teaching tools that could be used within virtual case-based sessions. Then, participants discussed how to incorporate these tools into case-based teaching sessions of different class sizes in small-group breakout sessions. Participants completed an online survey following each workshop to evaluate the sessions. Results: A total of 18 and 26 subjects participated in the first and second workshops, respectively. Survey response rates were 100% (n = 18) and 65% (n = 17) for the first and second workshops, respectively. Both groups provided overall high ratings and reported that the workshop was clear, organized, and relevant. Participants were more familiar and comfortable with the use of various interactive tools for online teaching. Discussion: Distance online teaching will be increasingly required for an undetermined time. Faculty development efforts are crucial to facilitate effective interactive teaching sessions that engage learners and maximize learning. This virtual teaching workshop is a simple and straightforward way to introduce a more interactive format to virtual case-based teaching in the health professions.

Career Development Considerations for Academic Physician Mentees and Mentors in the Time of COVID-19: Jump in or Just Dip a Toe?

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted medical research, pushing mentors and mentees to decide if COVID-19 research would be germane to the early career investigator's developing research portfolio. With COVID-19 halting hundreds of federal trials involving non-COVID-19 research, mentors and mentees must also consider the broader moral calling of contributing to COVID-19 research. At the time of writing, the National Institutes of Health had responded to the pandemic with significant funding for COVID-19 research. However, because this pandemic is a new phenomenon, few mentors have expertise in the disease and relevant established resources. As a result, many mentors are unable to provide insight on COVID-19 research to early career investigators considering a pivot toward research related to this disease. The authors suggest 4 ways for mentees and mentors to respond to the changes the pandemic has brought to research funding and opportunities: (1) include COVID-19 research in existing portfolios to diversify intellectual opportunities and reduce funding risks; (2) negotiate the mentor-mentee relationship and roles and expectations early in project discussions-considering, as relevant, the disproportionate burden of home responsibilities often borne by early career faculty members who are women and/or from a minority group; (3) address any mentor limitations in content expertise; and (4) if the decision is to pivot to COVID-19 research, select projects with implications generalizable beyond this pandemic to other infectious outbreaks or to the redesign of health care delivery. Mentors and mentees must weigh the relevance of COVID-19 research projects to the postpandemic world and the amount of available funding against the developing interests of early career investigators. Academic medical centers nationwide must enable seasoned and early career researchers to contribute meaningfully to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 research.

IT support in emergency remote teaching in response to COVID-19.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the German education system unexpectedly and forced its universities to shift to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). The Data Integration Center (DIC) of the University Hospital Magdeburg and the Institute of Biometry and Medical Informatics (IBMI) has developed a concept based on existing structures that can be quickly implemented and used by the Medical Faculty at Otto von Guericke University. This manuscript focuses on the IT support for lecturers, which allows them to concentrate on teaching their lessons, although the authors are aware that this is only a small part of the entire subject. Additionally, there is a great awareness that ERT can never replace well-structured in-person classes. Concept: The key feature of the concept uses the well-working management system for all physical rooms of the university by designing a virtual video conference room for every physical room. This allows high interactivity for lectures and seminars while applying proven teaching methods. Additionally, a collaboration software system to document all lessons learned and a technical support team have been available for the teaching staff. Courses with a hands-on approach require more personal interaction than lectures. Therefore, the issues of practical trainings have not been solved with this concept, but been tackled by using questionnaires and minimizing contacts during attestations. Applied IT tools: The concept's requirements were met by Zoom Meetings, Confluence, HIS/LSF and Moodle. Discussion and Conclusion: The concept helped the lecturers to provide high-quality teaching for students at universities. Additionally, it allows for a dynamic response to new needs and problems. The concept will be reviewed as part of a higher Universal Design for Learning concept and may support lecturers in the following semesters in hybrid meetings with real and virtual attendees.

Adaptations to mentoring and peer mentor training at the medical faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major adjustments in health care systems and significantly affected medical education. Accordingly, our mentoring program MeCuM-Mentor had to expand its virtual elements, in order to continue to meet the needs for mentoring at the medical faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Methods: Here we report on our recently implemented online formats to facilitate training for currently coached peer mentors, as well as the introduction of an online consultation hour and a new social mentoring event called PubQuiz. Results: First results demonstrated feasibility of the above-mentioned virtual formats, which were positively rated by the participants in small voluntary evaluation questionnaires. Utilization rates indicate existing need for mentoring during the pandemic. In addition, the new event PubQuiz promotes social interaction among peers during isolation due to COVID-19. Conclusion: With the transition to online formats, mentoring at the Medical Faculty could be continued during COVID-19. The newly introduced mentoring event PubQuiz will be repeated. However, it remains unclear to what extent online formats can replace in-person one-to-one mentoring conversations or peer mentoring meetings.

Maximizing Career Advancement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Recommendations for Postgraduate Training Programs.

The ongoing novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created many threats as well as opportunities for the career development of physicians-in-training. Institutional responses to the demand for patient care reduced the time many residents have to pursue clinical electives, scholarship projects, and other experiences meant to clarify and advance their personal and professional goals. Moreover, many academic medical centers experienced profound fiscal losses that require thoughtful revisions to budgets and curricula. In this article, the authors recommend strategies for residency programs to mitigate these losses and capitalize on growth in virtual education, scholarship opportunities, and relationships arising from the pandemic. Drawing from career development guidelines from the National Career Development Association and existing literature about factors associated with positive career outcomes, the authors suggest leadership roles, curricula, and events that training programs can quickly and inexpensively implement to help residents grow as professionals, achieve personal training goals, produce scholarship, and attain future employment. To help trainees manage their careers, the authors recommend structured mentorship and education in career pathways and the preparation of job application materials. To foster attainment of specific knowledge and cultivate lifelong learning, the authors recommend leveraging existing resources to provide time, funding, academic coaching, and skills training for scholarship projects. To promote development of effective work relationships and community, the authors recommend appointment of a faculty champion for career advancement, scholarship showcases, attendance at virtual journal clubs, and networking through social media outlets. These recommendations for supporting career advancement may apply to early career faculty development as well as undergraduate and postgraduate medical education beyond the pandemic era. Outcomes studies will be needed to evaluate the impact of these recommendations.

E-scouts in support of online teaching during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Introduction: During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, students with an affinity to digital technology supported the online teaching activities of lecturers on an ad-hoc and needs-oriented basis. The aim of the study was to determine the necessity and acceptance of these so-called e-scouts. Methodology: An online survey was sent via the Faculty of Medicine mailing list of department heads and teaching coordinators. Thirty valid responses were identified and evaluated. Results: The e-scouts provided support in particular with preparing audio commentaries of presentation slides, video recording of presentations, and the implementation of case-based e-learning. The main reasons for requesting help from the students were technical support, equipment loan, and support with how to use the learning platform and course management system. Overall, the lecturers rated the service provided by e-scouts as highly satisfactory and praised their prompt and competent assistance. Over 50% of the lecturers stated their wish to continue working with e-scouts in the future and integrate online activities into their teaching even beyond the SARS-CoV2 pandemic. Discussion and conclusion: With the support of the e-scouts, lecturers received assistance with developing and improving their own media competence without bureaucratic hurdles, aiming to create online courses for the local teaching and learning platform. Thereby, the e-scouts' perspective was very helpful in providing both important insights into how students learn as well as impulse toward the further development of digital teaching activities.

"It just magically happened overnight!" - support for the digitalization of medical teaching provided by an interdisciplinary e-tutor team.

Background: The forced and time-critical changeover to digital teaching and learning formats in the summer semester 2020 brought about numerous new challenges for the teaching staff of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Regensburg. Didactic and personnel support of clinical lecturers for the preparation, creation, and supervision of digital teaching materials became necessary. Project description: Since interdisciplinary teams seem to be superior in finding creative solutions, an interdisciplinary student e-tutor team was established at the Faculty of Medicine to support the digitalization of the range of courses. After their initial basic training the e-tutors had regular team meetings and internal mini-training sessions to ensure their continuous professional development. The e-tutors could be "requested" by clinical teaching staff and then accompanied the respective course preparation and implementation as required. Results and discussion: Both clinical teachers and students perceived the student e-tutors' support to be very positive. The e-tutors described the interdisciplinarity of the team as an important learning resource and their work as an exciting and instructive task. Conclusion and outlook: Due to the positive experiences with the e-tutors, the faculty is striving to establish sustainable digital teaching and learning services in the coming semesters.

Rapid development of a digital module during the Covid 19 pandemic in undergraduate medical education of pediatrics by teachers and students.

Objective: During the early Covid 19 pandemic, undergraduate medical teaching of pediatric medicine had to be switched to online teaching at the Hanover Medical School (MHH). The aim was to develop an online module together with students. Methodology: In a multi-stage process, a working group consisting of lecturers and students developed the concept and implemented it. Afterwards the online module was evaluated. Results: The conceptualization process and the implementation of the module together with students can be represented as a modified PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act). We showed that including students in the development of an online module is helpful in times of limited resources e.g. such as personnel and time. Conclusion: The cooperation between students and lecturers is suitable for developing and implementing an online module in a short time. In the future, in addition to joint conceptualization phases, digital elements (e.g. preparatory webinars) for the module itself in attendance phases should be retained.

Restructuring career counselling ventures of a mentoring program for medical students in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, medical curricula face major challenges. This also applies to mentoring programs, where face-to-face meetings are considered essential. Methods: The LMU Munich medical faculty mentoring program (MeCuM-Mentor) adapted to counteract the unforeseen pause of conventional course formats and associated uncertainty of many students. We here present an approach to transform the established large scale or group mentoring events of our program into online formats. Three projects are presented as examples: 1. HowTo Klink (HK), mainly informative in nature and with peer-mentoring character, 2. FacharztDuell (FAD) and 3. "Auf ein Gespräch mit... (AEGM)", both with a focus on career counseling. Results: Initial evaluations show a similarly high participation rate and a high level of satisfaction among the participating students. Students' evaluation of whether the projects presented should take place in presence or in online format has so far shown no clear trend. Conclusion: Prospective studies are necessary to investigate the effectiveness of these online formats and analyse differences in participant behaviour. The extent to which online mentoring can replace classic mentoring functions has to be discussed anew.

The Early Influence and Effects of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic on Resident Education and Adaptations.

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a major impact on the education of trainees in the radiology environment. The precipitous drop in patient volumes and sequestering of faculty and trainees to maintain social distancing affects experiential learning. The shift of nearly all teaching settings to a virtual environment has been challenging but may also allow more interaction during teaching sessions than traditional readout sessions or didactic lectures. Faculty development is key in ensuring competence and confidence in this new environment. Recruitment of trainees using a virtual platform will require communication of opportunities as well as the culture of the department and institution as well as the community. Delay of the board examinations has caused angst as well as disruption of the timing of clinical rotations but may ultimately result in a shift of how the examinations are administered. The exceptional disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to reconsider how the educational aspects of imaging can emerge as improved in the years to come.

Adapting to the impact of COVID-19: Sharing stories, sharing practice.

Health Professions' Educators (HPEs) and their learners have to adapt their educational provision to rapidly changing and uncertain circumstances linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reports on an AMEE-hosted webinar: Adapting to the impact of COVID-19: Sharing stories, sharing practice. Attended by over 500 colleagues from five continents, this webinar focused on the impact of the virus across the continuum of education and training. Short formal presentations on teaching and learning, assessment, selection and postgraduate training generated wide-ranging questions via the Chatbox. A thematic analysis of the Chatbox thread indicated the most pressing concerns and challenges educators were experiencing in having to adapt programmes and learning across the continuum of medical education and training. The main areas of concern were: campus-based teaching and learning; clinical teaching; selection and assessment, and educator needs. While there is clearly no one simple solution to the unprecedented issues medical education and training face currently, there were two over-arching messages. First, this is a time for colleagues across the globe to help and support each other. Second, many local responses and innovations could have the potential to change the shape of medical education and training in the future.

Development of clinical care guidelines for faculty and residents in the era of COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic brings new challenges to otolaryngology resident education. Surgical volume and clinic visits are curtailed, personal protective equipment for operating room participation is restricted, and the risk of COVID-19 disease transmission during heretofore routine patient care is the new norm. METHODS: We describe a small-team "cohorting" protocol including guidelines for faculty and resident in common clinical scenarios with attention paid to the risk of common otolaryngologic procedures. RESULTS: A rotating small-team approach was implemented at each clinical site, limiting interaction between department members but providing comprehensive coverage. Faculty were involved at the earliest phase of clinical interactions. Guidelines delineated faculty and resident roles based on risk stratification by patient COVID status and anticipated procedures. Special consideration was given to high-risk procedures such as endoscopy and tracheotomy. CONCLUSIONS: A small-team-based approach with guidelines for faculty/resident roles may mitigate risk while optimizing patient care and maximizing education.