Limitations in medical training during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

EDUMECENTRO 2023;15:e2490

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Limitations in medical training during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Limitaciones en la formación médica durante la pandemia por SARS-CoV-2

 

Juan Santiago Serna Trejos1* https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3140-8995
Stefanya Geraldine Bermúdez Moyano2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2259-6517

 

1 Pilot University Bogota. Faculty of Health Sciences. Bogota. Colombia.
2 Santiago de Cali University. Faculty of Health Sciences. Cali. Colombia.

 

* Corresponding author. Email: juansantiagosernatrejos@gmail.com

 

 

Submitted: 19/09/2022
Accepted: 17/11/2022

 

 

To the editor:

The global health contingency generated by SARS-CoV-2 managed to elucidate large gaps in education in all areas of knowledge, especially in medical education, largely due to ignorance of the use of different information and communication technologies (ICT); added to the above; Non-attendance disrupted the conventional way in which different knowledge of health sciences was taught to health personnel in training.(1)

Although the dissemination of knowledge is not a limitation for the training of health professionals, since there is a wide variety of databases and a high percentage of free access, the non-attendance and non-attendance in the different clinical practice scenarios They do have a limitation and a disadvantage in medical education, given its humanistic nature and close contact with the patient; the latter could be reflected when executing the different rotations in clinical practice, such as operating room hours, where students could not attend given the contingency and the different isolation policies managed by the countries.(2)

The use of ICT supposes great advances and limitations in its execution, since it is an integrating tool to correct the gaps of the non-presentiality, generating meetings synchronously and remotely, and offering the possibility of recording the different academic meetings, but in contrast, you can have difficulties in terms of connectivity. Although there are agreed and scheduled meetings, it is necessary in the practice of medicine, an exhaustive accompaniment and supervised by an expert teacher in the subject taught, in order to guarantee good clinical practices, as well as the supervision of other variables of interest. , such as the staging of health personnel in the clinical setting, ethical aspects, humane treatment, etc.

The teacher's pedagogy was another great limitation evidenced during the pandemic; Although there are multiple virtual tools to teach the contents, when transmitting them, it was not carried out in the most successful way, thus generating knowledge gaps in the students.(3)

It is also necessary to know the position of the health personnel themselves regarding the problems generated by the pandemic in terms of education and knowledge acquisition. A study carried out by Oropeza Aguilar et al.(4) sought to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on surgical residency programs in Mexico City, by applying a survey to more than 400 participants, mainly in the different programs medical-surgical postgraduate studies, the results of the study concluded that close to 66% of those surveyed responded that their centers were closed exclusively for the care of patients with COVID-19. 95% decreased their learning of surgical skills and 91.8% presented a decrease in clinical exposure. 75.6% considered it essential to take the necessary measures to recover lost clinical skills.

Another study carried out by Gómez López et al.(5) evaluated the usefulness of online classes in undergraduate Medicine according to the perception of the students, by applying a survey to more than 260 students from different semesters; The results obtained showed that 53% did not agree that this modality was useful for the development of procedural knowledge, and 80% considered that face-to-face classes are better than online classes.

The limitations usually arise in times where there are abrupt disruptions in relation to the emergence of variations from what was commonly used, or what was considered as a parameter of normality or standard; the gaps generated by the SARS-CoV-2 contingency should be used as opportunities for improvement in the training role of the different actors in the health system; Although there are already advances in face-to-face matters, it must be improved in key aspects such as: pedagogy, research and innovation, humanization, monitoring of acquired knowledge, among others.

 

BIBLIOGRAFIC REFERENCES

1. Sánchez Duque JA. Medical education in pandemic time: The case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Adv Chronic Kidney Dis [Internet]. 2020 [citado 04/04/2022];27(5):[aprox. 2 p.]. Disponible en: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edumed.2020.05.005

2. Chávez JG. Vicisitudes y retos pedagógicos en medio de la emergencia sanitaria. La formación médica en tiempos de COVID-19. Educ Med [Internet]. 2021 [citado 04/04/2022];22:[aprox. 10 p.]. Disponible en: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7881696/

3. Vásquez D. Ventajas, desventajas y ocho recomendaciones para la educación médica virtual en tiempos del COVID-19. CES Med [Internet]. 2020 [citado 04/04/2022];34:[aprox. 13 p.]. Disponible en: https://revistas.ces.edu.co/index.php/medicina/article/view/5540/3190

4. Oropeza Aguilar M, Cendejas-Gómez J, Quiroz-Compeán A, Buerba GA, Domínguez-Rosado I, Mendez-Probst CE. Impact of COVID-19 on surgical residency training programs in Mexico City: The third victim of the pandemic. A resident's perspective. Cir y Cir [Internet]. 2022 [citado 04/04/2022];90(2):[aprox. 7 p.]. Disponible en: https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?pid=S2444-054X2022000200165&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

5. Gómez López VM, Rosales Gracia S, Berrones Sánchez KI, Berrones Sánchez CM. Utilidad de las clases online en medicina de pregrado: percepción de los alumnos. Investig en Educ Med [Internet]. 2021 [citado 04/04/2022];11(41):[aprox. 10 p.]. Disponible en: https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2007-50572022000100010

 

Financing

Self financed.

 

 

Declaration of interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

 

 

Contribution of the authors

Juan Santiago Serna Trejos: conception of the idea, search for sources, writing, revision and approval of the manuscript.
Stefanya Geraldine Bemúdez Moyano: search for sources, writing and revision.

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