Opinion: Challenges to medical education at a time of physical distancing

With universities and hospitals adapting to the 'new normal', how will medical students gain the education and experience they need to qualify? Here, Professor Deborah Gill (UCL Medical School), joins long-term global collaborators in Canada and Ethiopia, to explain her thoughts. Practice-based learning is the backbone of the education of physicians. Hospitals, clinics, and community services are where future doctors learn, forge professional identities, and develop an orientation to patient-focused care that shape their practice. The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound impacts on medical education globally. For almost all medical students clinical placements stopped as health-care settings focused on the care of patients with COVID-19 and teaching in classrooms and laboratories was cancelled, leaving students to continue their studies remotely. Across Europe and parts of North America, thousands of senior medical students have been graduated early to provide a vital extra resource to health-care teams as part of the response to COVID-19. Globally, doctors in training have had rotations modified or cancelled to maximise the capacity of health-care systems to cope with pressures from cases of COVID-19.