Postgraduate Medical Training and COVID-19 Pandemic: Should We Stop, Freeze, or Continue?

ABSTRACT

While many countries in the world are going through a state of lockdown to limit the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), such a state may affect postgraduate medical training (PGMT) adversely in different aspects. These include a decreased number of clinical cases related to the specialty, staff shortage, cancelation of educational conferences, and difficulties conducting formal in-training and licensing examinations. Trainees, program directors, licensing bodies, and other stakeholders are in a difficult situation regarding what to do next. Such a situation raises several critical questions related to the training that we tried to address here.