Creating Medical School Without Walls: 'The Post-COVID-19 New Normal' of Medical Education

Abstract

Background: 2019 and 2020 will be remembered by medical schools, medical educators and medical students as years of uncertainty and unpredictability. The need for change on the one hand, and the pressure to take preventive measures for medical students in clinical rotation on the other are proof that we are going through a difficult process. Methods: Based on recently published literature, shares, official documents, and preprint studies, we reviewed predictions about the medical education of the post-COVID19 world. In addition, the statements of experts and predictions of institutions such as AAMC, AMA, and GMC were taken into consideration. "prediction", "medical education", "Healthcare", "New Normal", "assessment", "online education", “medical school(s)”, “medical student(s)” words searched by online browsing together with "Covid19/Coronavirus/pandemic". Results: With the Covid-19 outbreak, medical schools around the world had to restructure their ongoing programs and assessment methods at an extraordinary pace. As in the case of Italy and the USA, some countries graduated their medical students earlier than the planned date to assign them to the healthcare workforce. The most problematic aspects of the current MedEdu system are the gaps between knowing and doing, competence and performance, the ability to apply knowledge and use appropriate skills. Digitalization examples such as mobile applications, various online platforms, digital data sources, and artificial intelligence solutions have changed the medical practice and the patient-practitioner relationship. Conclusions: Our work describes how pandemic affected pre-clinical period teaching and clinical rotations and explores its potential implications for the future of medical education. Medical schools may need to reorganize their educational activities and curricula, taking into account the possible effects of current or future outbreaks. We interpret with suggestions for the future and how using digital educational techniques could lead us one step closer to the goals of not only pre-clinical medical education but also clinical rotation practice. We believe that the 2019 and 2020 would be remembered by medical schools, medical educators, and medical students as the years of uncertainty and unpredictability. This article raises questions that need to be answered for the future of medical education and seeks answers to these questions.