Title: Medical staff teaching experience during COVID-19 pandemic

Biography:

Dr. Amal Mohammed Surrati, Saudi and Arab Board certified in family medicine, acting as consultant family medicine in Taibah university medical service. I am an associate professor in the family & community medicine department of the college of medicine Taibah University, Madinah KSA 
 

Abstract

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic changed teaching and learning methods across the world. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess clinical tutor feedback on e-learning at Taibah University Medical College during a pandemic. 

Methods: Consenting medical faculty were asked to provide their feedback through an electronic semi-structured questionnaire that had both multiple choice and Likert scale responses. Sociodemographic data were also collected. The study was approved by Institutional Ethics Committee.      

Results: A total of 66 medical faculty members have participated. Most of the respondents were females (53%), almost half of them were Saudi nationals, and 48.4% had fewer than ten years of teaching experience. Most respondents felt that online teaching was the preferred choice during the pandemic, but over half of them (56.1%) favored classroom teaching for medical students. Almost fifty percent of the faculty members had not undergone training in medical education or online teaching. 86.4% of them felt that knowledge could be imparted through online teaching, but communication skills and psychomotor skills couldn't be acquired by online teaching. Around 60% of teachers felt that it is difficult to assess the students through the virtual teaching method. 

Conclusion: The medical faculty members believe that e-learning is time-consuming, it decreases student-teacher interaction, and student evaluation and assessment is more difficult than classroom teaching. Virtual teaching is good for imparting knowledge; however, it is not the preferred method for teaching communication and psychomotor skills.