EDUMECENTRO: Journal open to the creative activity of teachers in times of COVID-19

EDUMECENTRO: revista abierta a la actividad creadora de los docentes en tiempos de COVID-19

Bárbara Lorenza Suárez Rodríguez^1* https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4188-6365
María del Carmen Guevara Couto² https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1116-1112

¹ University of Medical Sciences of Villa Clara. "Arnaldo Milián Castro" Clinical-Surgical University Hospital. Villa Clara. Cuba.
² University of Medical Sciences of Villa Clara. School of Medicine. Villa Clara. Cuba.

* Author for correspondence. Email: barbarasr@infomed.sld.cu

Received: 02/04/2021
Approved: 24/04/2021

The beginning of 2020 surprised the world with the appearance of a new virus that put humanity at ease.⁽¹⁾ The pandemic unleashed by the SARS COV-2 corona virus prompted the implementation of measures for isolation and physical and social distancing on the planet and particularly in Cuba, which has resulted in the adoption of strategies in all spheres of society, including education to cope with the epidemiological situation.

The challenge for both social life and academy has been complex, which has made it necessary to put into practice a set of strategies by the teaching staff and students, both in undergraduate and postgraduate studies. There are multiple postgraduate actions carried out throughout the country to update and train professionals in the branch. The virtual university has played a relevant role in times of the pandemic. New Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) have been developed that allow study materials to be published in different formats and with high availability due to their easy access and that allow the student to participate in the teaching process when they have the required time.^(2,3)

Medical education has designed strategies to maintain the quality of the teaching-learning process in all senses. Work has been done to maintain the rigor of the methodological work to reorganize, adapt spaces and contents, the work of the subject, year, discipline and degree teaching staffs has been fundamental.

The EDUMECENTRO Journal, in its function of disseminating the scientific work of teachers in normal conditions, has been promulgated to transcend in these times in the publication of those articles that contribute to the quality of the teaching-learning process in times of COVID-19, and It is open to authors who, in their role as teachers and researchers, creatively contribute to develop the process with new teaching-learning strategies in accordance with these times. Thus, articles such as:

• "The Faculty of Technology-Nursing of Villa Clara before the mitigation of COVID-19", whose objective is to describe the educational actions that are carried out in the Faculty of Technology-Nursing to face COVID-19 at Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences.
• "Social impact of COVID-19 in Brazil and Ecuador: where reality exceeds the statistics", where the authors analyze the social impact of COVID-19 in Ecuador and Brazil as a representative sample of trends in Latin America under the so-called capitalist democracies.
• "Training of professionals and other health workers for the hospital approach against COVID-19", which shows the design and implementation of an upgrading course for the training of professionals and other workers on the hospital approach against COVID- 19.
• "WhatsApps as a platform for virtual teaching in Imaging in times of COVID-19", which justifies the use in postgraduate teaching in Imaging, as a virtual modality, a platform that allows to maintain and enhance teaching in times of pandemic with real cases of COVID-19
• "Information and communication technologies supporting education in times of COVID-19", where emphasis is placed on the use of technologies in these times and specifically virtual teaching environments.
• "The medical university in the confrontation with COVID-19: challenges that it has assumed". The challenges that medical education has had to face the COVID-19 pandemic are defined, to guarantee the continuity and quality of the teaching-learning process.

These are some examples of articles published on the pages of EDUMECENTRO related to the role of medical teaching to counteract the difficulties caused by the pandemic and for the training of health personnel in general and teachers in particular. As authors of this publication, we invite you to publish your experiences in the pages of this journal that are open to continue spreading all the creative activity of teachers in these times in order to guarantee the continuity with quality of the teaching-learning process in the Cuban medical university.

REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS

1. Hui DS, Azhar E, Madani TA, Ntoumi F, Kock R, Dar O, et al. The continuing 2019-nCoV epidemic threat of novel coronaviruses to global health. The latest 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. Int J Infect Dis [Internet]. 2020 [citado 05/05/2020];91:[aprox. 4 p.]. Disponible en: https://www.ijidonline.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1201-9712%2820%2930011-4

2. REACU. Acuerdo de REACU del 3 de abril de 2020, ante la situación de excepción provocada por el COVID-19. España: Red Española de Agencias de Calidad Universitarias; 2020.

3. Pérez Guerrero MC, Lozano Vega B. La universidad médica en el enfrentamiento a la COVID-19: retos que ha presupuesto. EDUMECENTRO [Internet]. 2021 [citado 02/04/2021]; 13(2):[aprox. 4 p.]. Disponible en: http://www.revedumecentro.sld.cu/index.php/edumc/article /view/1635

Declaration of interests

The authors declare no conflict interests.

This article has been published under the Creative Commons license.