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Perceptions of medical students towards online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national cross-sectional survey of 2721 UK medical students
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  • Published on: 20 November 2020
    Re: Perceptions of medical students towards online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national cross-sectional survey of 2721 UK medical students
    • Janeel S Nottage, Nursing Student The University of The Bahamas
    • Other Contributors:
      • Terry Campbell, Nursing Lecturer

    This is a response to the article written by Dost et al., 2020, on the way medical students perceive online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the possible bias within the sample, as a nursing student facing similar challenges, the study is intriguing. An article written by Hasan, et al., revealed that university students enjoy online teaching, primarily because of the associated flexibility with time and place. Nevertheless, the survey also disclosed the associated disadvantages, with network connection being the greatest. I was pleased to note that the beneficial and non-beneficial findings presented by Dost et al., 2020, well reflected previous works. These findings suggested that teaching via online platforms can effectively substitute face to face teaching however, there is a recognizable need for improvements.
    It is with great optimism, that the publication of this article raises awareness of the difficulties medical students face with virtual learning. Additionally, possible adverse effects from poor education delivery via online teaching, such as medical students feeling under prepared for work in their profession, were mentioned. Those effects, as well as the disadvantages, raised the questions: 1) Are medical students working as hard as they once were, with writing open-book examinations? 2) What is the effective alternative for clinical sessions?

    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.

    References
    Dost, S., Hossain, A., Sh...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on: 17 November 2020
    Hololens and clinical teaching during the Covid 19 pandemic
    • Corina Soare, Doctor University College Cork, Ireland
    • Other Contributors:
      • Niall P O'Brien, Research Assistant
      • Aoife O'Loughlin, Doctor
      • George Shorten, Doctor

    The survey reported by Dost et al [1] across 40 UK medical schools provides a thorough and valuable insight into medical students’ perceptions of the move to online teaching consequent upon the Covid 19 pandemic. Most respondents (75.99%; n=1842) felt that “online teaching had not successfully replaced the clinical teaching they had received via direct patient contact”. The authors conclude that clinical skills remain “ a pertinent barrier” to effective online teaching of medical students. [1] In anticipation of the challenges posed by the current pandemic to undergraduate medical education, Rose has asserted that “medical schools will need to be nimble and flexible in their response”.[2]
    Our initial experience of employing the Microsoft Hololens 2 for teaching of Final Year medical students indicates that certain of the “direct patient contact” elements can be provided remotely. Having a bedside clinician (wearing the Hololens) share a rendered mixed reality with remote students may also enable a degree of vertical or horizontal integration that would be difficult in the setting of a traditional bedside ward round. For instance, an image of a schematic depicting the Mallampati Classification for predicting difficulty with management of the upper airway can be “pinned” adjacent to the mouth of the person whose airway is being evaluated. Although our experience with mixed reality in this setting is limited, preliminary student and teacher feedback is positive. We...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.