Advances in Medical Education and Practice (Jul 2021)
Online Foundation Course Program for First Year Medical Undergraduates Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic – A New Learning Experience
Abstract
Gitanjali Khorwal,1 Gita Negi,2 Ashish Bhute,3 Harish Chandra,4 Priyavadhana Balasubramanian,4 Jayanti Pant5 1Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 2Department of Transfusion Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 3Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 4Department of Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 5Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, IndiaCorrespondence: Jayanti PantDepartment of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, 249203, IndiaEmail [email protected]: Foundation programs are conducted in medical schools for undergraduate students, since they are naïve and unaware of the medical profession in depth. The program helps them to become familiar with the undergraduate medical training. The present intake of first year medical undergraduates had joined the institute amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and hence the foundation program had to be conducted through an online platform. The present paper is a description of the online program conducted in the institute and is aimed to focus on the pros and cons of using an online platform for conducting the program and the experience gained from it. The online foundation program was conducted over a period of 16 days through the Zoom© platform. The program was tailored to cater for the orientation of 175 students who were admitted for first year MBBS batch 2020– 2021. Feedback from students was obtained through Google Forms© at the end of the program. The online program was conducted smoothly due to the dedicated efforts of all the team members. Sessions requiring hands-on training and physical field visits had to be omitted in the present program. Network connectivity issues were reported sometimes. The conduction of the online foundation course program was indeed a learning experience. The team work was well reflected in the feedback from the students, which revealed appreciation for the overall program. Many sessions went very well in the online mode; however, sessions on humanities and extracurricular activities could have been organized in a better way with the physical presence of the students.Keywords: orientation, Zoom© platform, students, modules
