Has COVID-19 Hurt Resident Education? A network-wide resident survey on education and experience during the pandemic

  1. Alexander Ostapenko
  2. Samantha McPeck
  3. Shawn Liechty
  4. Daniel Kleiner

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Abstract

Purpose

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, the healthcare system has been forced to adapt in myriad ways. Residents have faced significant changes in work schedules, deployment to COVID-19 units, and alterations to didactics. This study aims to identify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on resident perception of their own education within the Nuvance Health Network.

Methods

We conducted an observational study assessing resident perception of changes in education and lifestyle during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey was developed to assess the quality and quantity of resident education during this time and administered anonymously to all residents within the healthcare network.

Results

Eighty-four (68%) residents responded to the survey from five different specialties, including general surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, and radiology. The average change in hours per week performing clinical work was −5.6 hours (SD=16.8), in time studying was +0.02 hours (SD=4.6), in weekly didactics was −1.7 hours (SD=3.1), and in attending involvement was −1.2 hours (SD=2.3). Additionally, 32% of residents expressed concern that the pandemic has diminished their preparedness to become an attending, 13% expressed concern about completing graduation requirements, and 3% felt they would need an additional year of training.

Conclusions

During the COVID-19 pandemic thus far, residents perceived that time spent on organized didactics/conferences decreased and that attending physicians are less involved in education. Furthermore, the majority of residents felt that the quality of didactic education diminished as a result of the pandemic. Surprisingly, while many residents expressed concerns about being prepared to become an attending, few were concerned about completing graduation requirements or needing an extra year of education. In light of these findings, it is critical to devote attention to the effects of the pandemic on residents’ professional trajectories and create innovative opportunities for improving education during this challenging time.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.13.20171256: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Our Institutional Review Board deemed this study exempt (IRB# 2012208337) and waved the need for participant consent.
    Consent: Our Institutional Review Board deemed this study exempt (IRB# 2012208337) and waved the need for participant consent.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are several limitations to this study. In order to achieve a good response rate, we conducted this study within our Healthcare Network. A benefit of this was that as a healthcare network in one of the earliest areas affected by COVID-19, we are able to analyze its effects in a timely fashion that may benefit other geographic areas affected similarly in the future. However, the results of this study may not be generalizable to residents in other programs in the United States. While residents in states with lower incidence of COVID-19 may not be as significantly impacted as residents at our institution, continued evolution of the COVID pandemic and the rise of new epicenters of disease may make these results more generalizable over time. Another limitation is the presence of recall bias; residents were asked to recount hours and experiences prior to the pandemic and compare them to the present time. This type of design can result in both perception bias as well as historical bias for which we cannot account. Despite its limitations, these results are integral, as they highlight the varied but significant impacts of the pandemic on resident education. Different specialties were affected in diverse ways, and just as before the pandemic, education should be tailored to each specialty. Moving forward, program directors and leaders within each field should be cognizant of the changing needs of the residents within their specialty, keeping in mind that COVID-19 affected the amo...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.13.20171256v1 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1177/2382120520959695