How to cite:
Hughes, J.; Strachan, K.; Al Ansari, A.; Nicholson, A.; Harrison-Mirfield, S.; Brady, G.; Atkin, S.; Otoom, S. Managing Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The RCSI Bahrain Experience. Preprints2020, 2020100632
Hughes, J.; Strachan, K.; Al Ansari, A.; Nicholson, A.; Harrison-Mirfield, S.; Brady, G.; Atkin, S.; Otoom, S. Managing Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The RCSI Bahrain Experience. Preprints 2020, 2020100632
Hughes, J.; Strachan, K.; Al Ansari, A.; Nicholson, A.; Harrison-Mirfield, S.; Brady, G.; Atkin, S.; Otoom, S. Managing Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The RCSI Bahrain Experience. Preprints2020, 2020100632
APA Style
Hughes, J., Strachan, K., Al Ansari, A., Nicholson, A., Harrison-Mirfield, S., Brady, G., Atkin, S., & Otoom, S. (2020). Managing Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The RCSI Bahrain Experience. Preprints. https://doi.org/
Chicago/Turabian Style
Hughes, J., Stephen Atkin and Sameer Otoom. 2020 "Managing Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The RCSI Bahrain Experience" Preprints. https://doi.org/
Abstract
Background: The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland - Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain) was closed due to COVID 19. The aim of this paper is to present our experience, in managing teaching and learning, during this pandemic. Methods: Following, ethical approval, several meetings were held with the senior faculty and student representatives to select alternative virtual approaches for teaching, learning and assessment with evidence-based instructional design. Informed consent was obtained from all study participants. All procedures were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. In alignment with global scenario, we decided upon early graduation for our students, and expedited the clinical examinations, with special permission from health and education ministries. Two major clinical examinations were redesigned to form a single hybrid clinical examination with two parts. Following all COVID 19 preventive measures, students were taken in groups of seven and simulated patients were substituted for real patients. No more than 40 students were present at any point of time, with no more than 10 examined in one block. 149 out of 152 RCSI students attended the clinical examinations and 524 students from the three RCSI campuses attended the written online examination. A structured survey was conducted to elicit students’ perceptions and participation was entirely voluntary. Results: 82% of students were happier to be joining the workforce early and, 22% expressed concerns. A comparison of student performance in these examinations against the equivalent components from semester one yielded no significant deviation in student performance, illustrating that the quality was consistent. Conclusion: We recommend that the government accredit online or distance learning programmes and explore appropriate methodologies for evaluation of online learning and assessment. Incorporating practical/clinical training, will continue to be a great challenge.
Keywords
COVID 19; Health Education; RCSI; teaching and learning; Pandemic
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Immunology and Allergy
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
