Curriculum delivery in Medical Education during an emergency: A guide based on the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) has led the majority of countries worldwide to implement emergency lockdown plans to limit the spread of the virus; this has resulted in the interruption of on-campus school and university instruction. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in medical education have varied from country to country, from closures of medical schools to online/distance learning approaches to abiding by country-specific measures such as social distancing to stop the spread of the disease. The sudden transition from on-campus learning to exclusively distance learning is challenging for both faculty and students and has required a lot of preparation and other efforts in a short time. This paper aims to share the experiences of four authors in the middle east that have dealt with the sudden transition from ordinary teaching and learning to fully online teaching. The process of Curriculum delivery in Medical Education during an emergency has included; establishing a sense of urgency, establishing working teams, conducting needs assessments, developing implementation plans, communicating the curriculum content, capacity building, managing students' stress, finding tools to be used, managing student engagement and motivation, student assessment, anticipating challenges and planning for how to overcome them, and monitoring and evaluation of curriculum implementation and continuous improvement. The proposed process will hopefully assist the medical schools in response to the current pandemic (COVID-19) and when facing similar situations.