New publications as of August 7th

“Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on anesthesia residency education” by O’Brien and team sought to understand medical education and safety for residents during the pandemic.

“Wearable technology and live video conferencing: The development of an affordable virtual teaching platform to enhance clinical skills education during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Wintraub et al compared seven different wearable technology devices to see which paired best with live video conferences for clinical training.

“The role of medical students in the COVID-19 pandemic response: A call for ethical guidelines” by Kitching and team acknowledged the inevitability of recruiting medical students to help with COVID-19.

“Internal Medicine Enrichment and Development: A summer exploration program for pre-clerkship students” by Kobza and co-authors described a successful two-week program aimed to give pre-clerkship students an overview of the internal medicine subspecialties.

“Mobile medical simulation for rural anesthesia providers: A feasibility study” by Premkumar and team explained their mobile medical simulation in rural Saskatchewan for continuing medical education.

“Rapid, collaborative generation and review of COVID-19 pandemic-specific competencies for family medicine residency training” by Wooltorton et al. described the collaboration of physicians to create a list of necessary competencies for and during COVID-19.

“Patients as teachers: Evaluating the experiences of volunteer inpatients during medical student clinical skills training” by Elfassy and co-authors explored the experiences of volunteer inpatients participating in clinical skills training.

“Teaching an educational simulation elective outside the simulation center” by Kleinheksel and Tews is a works-in-progress article about remote learning during COVID-19, specifically teaching simulation without the simulation centre.

“Residency redeployment during a pandemic: Lessons for balancing service and learning” by Claudio and team is a works-in-progress article about the challenges involved in residents being redeployed during COVID-19.  

“Virtual Ice Cream Rounds: Addressing medical clerk wellness during COVID-19” by Kearney and Lurkings facilitated ice cream rounds “virtually” due to the pandemic.

“Cause for concern: Resident experience in operative trauma during general surgery residency at a Canadian centre” by Engels and team created a retrospective trauma operative case log for general surgery residents.  

“Enough is enough: Licensing exams in the time of COVID-19” by Karim Mithani provided commentary about the added stresses of writing licensing exams during a pandemic.

“Identifying essential procedural skills in Canadian undergraduate medical education” by Battaglia and team created a survey to identify the set standard expectations for procedural skills for new medical graduates.

 

Read more below:

“Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on anesthesia residency education” by O’Brien and team is a work-in-progress article that seeks to answer questions about the clinical role of anesthesia residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. They hoped that their study would help form training during pandemic conditions.

In “Wearable technology and live video conferencing: The development of an affordable virtual teaching platform to enhance clinical skills education during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Wintraub and co-authors, the authors identified device-accessory pairings compatible with live virtual conferencing technology that can be adapted for use with medical education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. They anticipated that their study would aid in future distance clinical skills education.

Kitching and team urged for the development of guidelines for medical student recruitment in “The role of medical students in the COVID-19 pandemic response: A call for ethical guidelines.” In this commentary, they called for government organizations, health authorities, and the medical community to develop ethical guidelines for student recruitment in the event of resource shortages. They acknowledged that as the demand on essential workers in the health care system increases, they need guidelines for the potential recruitment of medical students.

In “Internal Medicine Enrichment and Development: A summer exploration program for pre-clerkship students” by Kobza and co-authors, they outlined a student-led program (IMED: Internal Medicine Enrichment) that was designed to give interested pre-clerkship students a broader overview of the internal medicine subspecialties. She concluded that medical students could benefit from this type of program to make more informed decisions about residency.

“Mobile medical simulation for rural anesthesia providers: A feasibility study” by Premkumar and team described her pilot project for mobile medical simulation scenarios in rural Saskatchewan for continuing medical education. While they found it useful to train rural participants in clinical and professional skills, it was also expensive.  They hope educators will consider allocating resources for future simulation projects.

“Rapid, collaborative generation and review of COVID-19 pandemic-specific competencies for family medicine residency training” by Wooltorton et al. detailed the compellation of competencies needed to facilitate teaching and learning during COVID-19. Not only did they describe the necessary competencies; but they also found that the project demonstrated a innovative collaboration of medical experts as a response to the public health crisis.

Elfassy and co-authors wrote “Patients as teachers: Evaluating the experiences of volunteer inpatients during medical student clinical skills training.” They reviewed the experiences of volunteer inpatients participating in clinical skills training with junior medical students. While the overall satisfaction ratings were optimal, some respondents reported a lack of information for decision making. Elfassy concluded that that more time and information for volunteer participants would have been helpful for clarify.

In “Teaching an educational simulation elective outside the simulation center,” Kleinheksel and Tews are responding to remote education during COVID-19. This works-in-progress article aims to see if the simulation education elective can achieve the same objectives when done remotely; and if it could be expanded to accommodate a larger number of students.

“Residency redeployment during a pandemic: Lessons for balancing service and learning” by Claudio and team is a COVID-19 works-in-progress article about resident deployment during the pandemic.  They aimed to gather information about ‘lessons learned’ during COVID-19 deployment They plan to frame a larger study about the educational outcomes.

In “Virtual Ice Cream Rounds: Addressing medical clerk wellness during COVID-19” by Kearney and Lurkings, they adapted and facilitated their first virtual ice cream rounds due to COVID-19. Their results showed students had an increase most areas of perceived wellness.

In the report, “Cause for concern: Resident experience in operative trauma during general surgery residency at a Canadian centre” Engels and team responded to recent publications that quested general surgery residents’ ability to provide operative trauma care.  They created a retrospective trauma operative case log for general surgery residents. They found the operative trauma surgery exposure of a typical graduating resident was limited compared to Canadian and American standards.

Karim Mithani wrote a commentary entitled “Enough is enough: Licensing exams in the time of COVID-19.” He argued that in light the pandemic, the newest doctors were forced to face an arguably unnecessary licensing examination. He hopes to bring to light this tribulation.

“Identifying essential procedural skills in Canadian undergraduate medical education” by Battaglia and team created a national survey on current Canadian procedural skills. They wanted to address the discrepancy between expectations of supervisors and the skills new residents are able to perform without direct supervision.  By recognizing the essential skills, they hope to help shape future curricula standards.