Virtual clinical meetings as a teaching strategy before the suspension of face-to- face courses in 2020. Student evaluation

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, teaching surgical clinics has represented a great challenge and this motivated the development of virtual clinical meetings. The objective of this work is to communicate a new way in Uruguay of approaching the virtual teaching of Clinics Surgical and its evaluation by students. Methods: Virtual clinical encounters is an educational tool based on real clinical situations where the student was the protagonist of the activity. With a weekly frequency and 2 hours of duration, using the Zoom platform. At the end of the activity, a student satisfaction survey was carried out and the results summarized in percentages. Results: 90 students and 10 teachers participated.12 virtual clinical meetings were held. This activity was considered important by 88.5% of the students in their learning process. The dynamics with the highest acceptance were the vignettes with questions in real time (59.6%), followed by theoretical bases with questions in real time (17.3%) and the analysis of clinical case by group (15.4%). The most important suggestion is that this activity be maintained regardless of the reinstatement to the presence in the future. Conclusion: The use of virtual clinical meetings has proven to be an alternative tool to face-to-face activities during the covid-19 pandemic and in the future it will become a significant complement given the high acceptance by both students and teachers.