Virtual clinical meetings as a teaching strategy before the suspension of face-toface courses in 2020. Student evaluation

Abstract

Introduction: Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic,
teaching surgical clinics has represented a great challenge and this
motivated the development of virtual clinical meetings. The objective
of this work is to communicate a new way in Uruguay of approaching
the virtual teaching of Clinics Surgical and its evaluation by students.
Methods: Virtual clinical encounters is an educational tool based
on real clinical situations where the student was the protagonist of
the activity. With a weekly frequency and 2 hours of duration, using
the Zoom platform. At the end of the activity, a student satisfaction
survey was carried out and the results summarized in percentages.
Results: 90 students and 10 teachers participated.12 virtual clinical
meetings were held. This activity was considered important by 88.5%
of the students in their learning process. The dynamics with the
highest acceptance were the vignettes with questions in real time
(59.6%), followed by theoretical bases with questions in real time
(17.3%) and the analysis of clinical case by group (15.4%).

The most important suggestion is that this activity be maintained
regardless of the reinstatement to the presence in the future.
Conclusion: The use of virtual clinical meetings has proven to
be an alternative tool to face-to-face activities during the covid-19
pandemic and in the future it will become a significant complement
given the high acceptance by both students and teachers