Re-imagining health professions education in the coronavirus disease 2019 era: Perspectives from South Africa

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic hit South Africa in March 2020, severely disrupting health services and health education. This fundamentally impacted the training of future health professionals and catalysed a significant response from across the health education sector. In 2020, the South African Association of Health Educationalists requested members to submit reflections on different aspects of their COVID-19 related educational responses.Responding to the pandemic: Seven vignettes focused specifically on clinical training in the context of primary care and family medicine. This short report highlights the key insights that emerged from these vignettes, considering what has been learnt in terms of health professions education and what we need to take forward. These insights include building on what was already in place, the student role, technology in the clinical learning context, taking workshops online, vulnerability and presence and the way going forward.Discussion and conclusion: The contributions emphasised the value of existing relationships between the health services and training institutions, collaboration and transparent communication between stakeholders when navigating a crisis, responsiveness to the changed platform and dynamic environment and aligning teaching with healthcare needs. It is more important than ever to set explicit goals, have clarity of purpose when designing learning opportunities and to provide support to students. Some of these learning points may be appropriate for similar contexts in Africa. How we inculcate what we have learned into the post-pandemic period will bear testimony to the extent to which this crisis has enabled us to re-imagine health professions education.

Comparing in-person, blended and virtual training interventions; a real-world evaluation of HIV capacity building programs in 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa

“…Learners in Y2 were more likely to be female and from more diverse cadres than learners in Y1. These findings are in contrast with other data highlighting how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed and increased pre-existing inequities in professional development opportunities for healthcare professionals in LMICs,(2, 18, 19) Although many health professions training institutions in SSA lack access and capacity to use digital technologies to deliver HIV training(20) our results affirm the critical role that online training interventions can play in advancing professional development opportunities especially for those healthcare professions historically underserved by capacity building interventions. (21)…”

Cost of running a full-service receiving office at a centralised testing laboratory in South Africa

“…Another limitation is that this study did not consider the costs of training required to introduce OE. Although the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has demonstrated that it is possible to conduct clinical training remotely, 36 health facilities may not have access to the necessary bandwidth and computers present in a university environment. 36 Therefore, the cost of introducing OE should be assessed given the challenges with remote learning, especially in rural settings.…”

Application of machine learning approaches to analyse student success for contact learning and emergency remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 era in speech–language pathology and audiology

“…Teletraining and telepractice have not been employed extensively (Khoza-Shangase et al, 2021 ). The COVID-19 outbreak therefore brought to light the need for a paradigm shift in the manner in which clinical training for SLH in South Africa is viewed and conducted (Chin et al, 2021 ; Khoza-Shangase et al, 2021 ; Schmutz et al, 2021 ). In pursuit of solutions during ERTL, application of simulations was presented as one of the ways students can conduct their clinical training (Tabatabai, 2020 ).…”