Dr. Marco Ameduri (left) and Dr. Thurayya Arayssi
Doha: Just as every aspect of society has changed in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, medical education has also had to adapt quickly and modify its methods worldwide.
Faced with a looming new normal, educators at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar, (WCM-Q), a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), are ruminating on how best to ensure rigorous medical training that produces a steady stream of competent physicians.
The sudden shift to remote learning due to the pandemic brought about numerous challenges for faculty at WCM-Q, but fortunately, all classes progressed seamlessly with minimal interruption.
At WCM-Q, as an international community representing a diverse body of students and faculty, the first challenge was the time zone. As some international students decided to join their families in their home countries, faculty encountered the difficult challenge of finding a suitable time to accommodate the various time zones to deliver live lectures online.
“Nonetheless, thanks to the careful preparedness of WCM-Q’s premedical faculty and teaching specialists, the curriculum was delivered seamlessly. Through pre-recorded lectures from previous semesters and other innovative strategies were adopted to ensure students’ learning was uninterrupted,” said Dr. Marco Ameduri, Associate Professor of Physics and Senior Associate Dean for Pre-Medical Education.
A second challenge that faculty faced pertains to access to technology, including hardware and software. For instance, some households availed one device per family, which posed problems for students to maintain academic continuity. Additionally, other students had poor Internet connection and frequently faced interruptions. Another difficult challenge is concerned with the engagement of students during instruction.
“Typically, in a face-to-face environment, faculty can decipher non-verbal cues in the classroom and strive to engage quiet or reserved students. However, in an online environment, non-verbal communication posed a serious impediment to the engagement of those students and the warmth of in-person interactions in a physical classroom setting,” said Dr. Ameduri.
As a medical school, conducting laboratory sessions virtually proved exceedingly challenging. However, through recorded and live demonstrations, simulations, and virtual labs, students at WCM-Q could conduct meaningful laboratory investigations.
“Despite these formidable challenges and the uncertainty about the future, faculty flexibility and resilience enabled them to keep students motivated during these unprecedented times,” said Dr. Ameduri.
Like colleagues in the premedical program, one of the major issues encountered in the medical curriculum was accommodating students living in different time zones. This problem was managed by delivering recorded lectures and successfully moving the foundational sciences course quizzes to remote testing in the pre-clinical curriculum.
“Testing and assessment in the clinical curriculum were kept in high gear by the remote delivery of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) exams. They utilised a secure NBME browser recorded with Panopto technology and remote proctored via Zoom,” said Dr. Thurayya Arayssi, Senior Associate Dean, Medical Education, and Continuing Professional Development, WCM-Q.
Another challenge the faculty faced was keeping the students engaged during Zoom sessions. The faculty pivoted very quickly by introducing interactive technology such as gaming and polling and keeping the chat box open for in-time interaction. Moreover, the faculty modified their course schedules to include regular question and answer sessions and created discussion boards on Learning Management System.
“To interact with students, regular online check-in meetings were scheduled while studying at home and away from college. Besides, the faculty used our LMS’s technological tools to identify students who did not engage with and utilize the available resources. This allowed us to provide targeted appropriate support,” said Dr. Arayssi.
“Throughout the college closure, our curriculum committees continued to function. Student representatives attended these meetings and provided valuable feedback from the student body on their progression during the closure. In preparation for a possible continued presence of COVID-19 and a restriction in college opening, our faculty made good use of the lockdown to create online distributed learning activities. These measures will ensure our students continued to progress in their medical studies in the new academic term,” she added.
