REVIEW ARTICLE
Strengthening medical education during the post-COVID-19 era for building an effective healthcare workforce: A narrative review
 
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1
Department of Internal Medicine/Endocrinology, College of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, SAUDI ARABIA
 
2
Department of Dental Education, College of Dentistry & Deanship of Quality and Academic Accreditation, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Al-Khobar, SAUDI ARABIA
 
3
Quality Assurance Department, Deanship of Quality and Academic Accreditation, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, SAUDI ARABIA
 
4
Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, SAUDI ARABIA
 
5
Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, SAUDI ARABIA
 
6
King Fahad Hospital of the University, Al-Khobar, SAUDI ARABIA
 
7
Department of Educational and Professional E-learning Platforms, Deanship of E-learning and Distance Learning, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, SAUDI ARABIA
 
 
Publication date: 2022-07-25
 
 
Electron J Gen Med 2022;19(5):em396
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged by the end of 2019 and spread as pandemic on March 2020 worldwide. Subsequently, it has universally disturbed the medical education and health systems. It leads to lethal circumstances, which become encounters for medical education. Therefore, there is a need to ensure the integrity and firmness of the medical education process and safe lecture delivery. Also, it is essential to re-examine structuring the workforce capacity with the condition of the swiftly altering healthcare system globally and worldwide requirements. A narrative review was conducted to reveal the critical aspects of medical education that need to be reinforced during the post-COVID-19, focusing on building an effective healthcare workforce. It included and examined the relevant papers using search terms in PubMed and Web of Science. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has unlocked a creative horizon in accepting an appropriate educational methodology to convey safe health professionals, with the human-centered ethical value of professional skill and expertise embedded with humane behavior. A direct, hands-on scientific practice should be sustained with the usual methods to develop graduates’ skills and experience and ensure the quality of medical education. However, to combat the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical schools and other health profession education institutions globally must adjust their curriculum and educational strategies through innovative distant learning modes, including extended reality technology, e-learning tools, and simulation amenities. From experience gained through a pandemic, medical schools should perform best practices for a dynamic shift to blended learning and assessment. Moreover, medical educators should develop practical guidelines or protective actions to conduct clinical teaching without negotiating safety, health, and quality of medical education.
 
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