The Multifaceted Impact of COVID‐19 on the Female Academic Emergency Physician: A National Conversation

Abstract

COVID‐19 has impacted all health care professionals in every aspect of life. Female academic emergency physicians have been uniquely affected and continue to face challenges related to clinical workloads, work–life integration, academic productivity, leadership and visibility within departments, and mental health. This white paper, prepared on behalf of the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine (AWAEM), describes the differential impact of COVID‐19 on female academic emergency physicians explored during a virtual panel discussion at the 2020 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Annual Meeting. AWAEM convened a virtual panel of women to begin a discussion to share experiences and challenges and formulate consensus guidelines regarding best practices and mitigation strategies. The authors describe the unique ways in which female academic physicians have been affected, identify ongoing and intensified gender gaps, and delineate strategies to address the identified problems. Specific recommendations include individual, as well as, institutional and systems‐level approaches to combat the inequities.

Video-based, student tutor- versus faculty staff-led ultrasound course for medical students – a prospective randomized study

“…A Korean nationwide survey revealed that teaching videos increased students’ subjective feelings of competence and were rated to be useful in different medical disciplines [ 25 ]. With respect to objective learning outcomes, studies comparing video-based against traditional teaching methods have reported divergent results with either improved theoretical practical knowledge [ 37 , 52 , 53 ], no effect differences [ 35 ] or even worse learning outcomes [ 36 ]. With respect to video-based ultrasound teaching, only two studies yet exist that have evaluated objective learning outcomes or students’ acceptance, respectively.…”

“…Before first use in our study, the videos were repeatedly tested by selected medical students in order to optimize didactics specifically required by the target audience of ultrasound unexperienced medical students. Implementation of these principles aim at reducing cognitive load and enhancing learning which has been shown to improve objective learning outcomes when compared to traditional lectures [ 33 , 34 , 52 ]. However, one may speculate that the design principles may rather influence objective than subjective learning outcomes and acceptance among individuals with different learning preferences, respectively [ 52 , 54 ].…”

“…Implementation of these principles aim at reducing cognitive load and enhancing learning which has been shown to improve objective learning outcomes when compared to traditional lectures [ 33 , 34 , 52 ]. However, one may speculate that the design principles may rather influence objective than subjective learning outcomes and acceptance among individuals with different learning preferences, respectively [ 52 , 54 ]. Other digital formats such as mobile learning applications (“app”) or adaptive computer supported collaborative e-learning systems may be associated with a higher general acceptance [ 55 , 56 ].…”

Overstretched and overlooked: solving challenges faced by early-career investigators after the pandemic

“…Investigators who belong to gender, racial, and ethnic minority groups; are first generation college students; or are economically disadvantaged, are less likely to receive independent federal research funding and less likely to pursue principal investigator positions [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Emerging evidence suggests the pandemic has only exacerbated these disparities [9,10] and pandemicrelated setbacks will negatively affect the diversity of the scientific workforce for years to come [11].…”

Evaluating Effectiveness of YouTube Videos for Teaching Medical Students CPR: Solution to Optimizing Clinician Educator Workload during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…As social distancing is strongly recommended, in-person educational activities for medical students have been suspended, and the modality of preclinical learning for medical students has changed to an online modality [ 2 ]. These circumstances have prompted clinical educators to prepare and develop new educational content for online teaching about emergency medicine and to record lecture videos [ 3 ]. However, due to the shortage of required medical personnel during the pandemic, primary care and emergency physicians have had to increase their clinical work hours and have little time to prepare for preclinical education of medical students [ 4 ].…”