Abstract Details

With the restrictions secondary to COVID19, didactics were transitioned to online platform (zoom) which is a new normal. We have surveyed the neurology residents at UK to assess the effectiveness and setbacks with online didactics. 

An anonymous online survey was sent to all the neurology residents and the summative evaluation results were assessed.

30 out of 36 residents have completed the survey. The best feature of online didactics was considered to be the ability to login from remote location and hence giving residents a chance to attend more lectures. Post-COVID restrictions, half of the residents expressed shifting to virtual didactics in future and half expressed preferred to use it only as an adjunct to traditional learning. Two-third of the residents thought the major setback was inability to interact and meet their colleagues.  Only 13% of residents that it had impacted their ability to concentrate. Despite the setbacks, none of the residents thought that virtual learning needs to be stopped completely. It is noteworthy that around 36% of residents reported they were able to concentrate to only to about 75% or less of the total lectures that they logged onto.

Our survey results suggest that virtual didactics have to be continued, either in addition to live didactics or exclusively. The ease of accessing the virtual didactics remotely has increased the didactics attendance. The major setback identified was inability to interact and meet the co-residents and faculty in-person. Residents self-reported that their attention was reduced, probably because they were trying to multitask. The survey was helpful to make specific modifications to increase the effectiveness of virtual learning to meet the resident satisfaction and to improve the quality of education.