Training Initiative for Psychiatry Post-graduate students (TIPPS)—a Unique Early Career Psychiatry Training Initiative in India and Its Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19-Related Disruptions Are an Opportunity for Reflection on the Role of Research Training in Psychiatric Residency Programs

“…The scarcity of patients available for clinical training translated to reduced trainee performance in clinical relative to knowledge-based components of examinations [3]. Consequently, many medical schools adapted the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) formats, and residents were required to pivot, abruptly in some cases, to teleconsultation to provide clinical services in both training and examination settings [4].…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has required rapid, sometimes seismic, modifications of undergraduate and postgraduate medical training [1][2][3][4], especially for teaching programs and residencies that are mainly practice-based and clinically oriented. The challenges presented by the pandemic to postgraduate clinical training have been multifaceted, including reduced in-person hospital visits, suspension of many outpatient and inpatient services, disruptions in clinical placements for residents, and curtailment of elective surgical procedures [3,4]. Moreover, the range of usual opportunities to bolster knowledge and skills for both practice and research has been restricted by the transition to distance learning, suspended research work, disrupted mentoring, and cancelled conferences and workshops [3,4].…”

“…The challenges presented by the pandemic to postgraduate clinical training have been multifaceted, including reduced in-person hospital visits, suspension of many outpatient and inpatient services, disruptions in clinical placements for residents, and curtailment of elective surgical procedures [3,4]. Moreover, the range of usual opportunities to bolster knowledge and skills for both practice and research has been restricted by the transition to distance learning, suspended research work, disrupted mentoring, and cancelled conferences and workshops [3,4]. At the same time, this adversity has offered opportunities to institute or expand innovative teaching strategies (e.g., teleconsultation, videoconferencing, virtual simulations) [4].…”

“…Moreover, the range of usual opportunities to bolster knowledge and skills for both practice and research has been restricted by the transition to distance learning, suspended research work, disrupted mentoring, and cancelled conferences and workshops [3,4]. At the same time, this adversity has offered opportunities to institute or expand innovative teaching strategies (e.g., teleconsultation, videoconferencing, virtual simulations) [4]. Research concerning the effectiveness of these strategies is in nascent stages, and further work is needed to evaluate the continued viability of novel teaching practices occasioned by the pandemic.…”

Implementation of objective structured clinical examination into the post-graduate residency curriculum in the wake of COVID-19

“…Many institutes gravitated towards the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) format to bypass the difficulty of using real patients. [ 2 ]…”