Résumé
The pandemic of Coronavirus disease- 2019 (COVID-19) introduced great challenges to the higher education sector and at the same time opened the door for future opportunities. This review aims to present the experience of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain in managing teaching and learning during COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic, the university implemented several initiatives in ensuring that final year students graduate on time and quality of assessment in a fully digitised environment. The guiding principle for the university as the examination were redesigned, was to ensure that they remained valid to ensure students could demonstrate achievements of the core learning outcomes and be safely assessed as competent graduates. In achieving these goals, the university has well-developed formal and informal mechanisms to ensure the student voice is heard and listened to, and it was of paramount importance to ensure that this was continued and enhanced during these times. While university was successful in managing this unprecedented situation, more work must be done on analysing the author's experience, and that of others, to implement the needed changes to ensure student access to learning, without compromising their safety or that of the staff. The university sees the current impetus to provide education through technology enhanced learning as an opportunity to expand and diversify learning opportunities and resources for students. In universities such as ours, which has only healthy subjects, practice become essential components of the programme, making a blended model of face-to-face and online delivery the ideal fit.
Résumé
Objective: The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic and subsequent Government 'lockdown' has meant that boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) have not being seen in clinic for assessments and their North Star Ambulatory Assessment (NSAA) not administered. The NSAA is a validated and reliable 17-item functional rating scale and widely used to assess motor function in DMD boys. The standards of care recommend that DMD boys are seen every 6 months to assess function using the NSAA. The aim is to investigate whether the NSAA could be used to accurately and reliably score ambulant boys with DMD by video assessment. Methods: Ten ambulant DMD boys were selected from electronic hospital records at the Robert Jones &Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (RJAH). Two Physiotherapists scored the DMD boys NSAA independently. The video scores were compared to the 2 previous face-to-face NSAA scores. Results: Mean scores (SD) for NSAA face-to-face visit one were: 22.6 (4.19);visit two 21.8 (5.3). The two Physiotherapist video mean NSAA scores were 20.6 (5.66);Physiotherapist 1 and 20.6 (6.53) Physiotherapist 2. Decline in score from face-to-face visit one (12 months) to video assessment was 2.1 (3.09). This is consistent with the results of Mazzone et al (2011) where a mean decline in 12 months of 2.2 (3.7) was observed in 106 DMD boys. Conclusion: The results from the study suggest that video NSAA is accurate and reliable. However further studies with a larger cohort would need to be conducted to confirm these findings.