Impact of COVID-19 on Postgraduate Surgical Education: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The surgical education is different than other disciplines of medical training because the education requires transfer of knowledge along with the surgical skills. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the conventional method of teaching learning activities had been affected. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on post graduate surgical education during the pandemic.
Methods: A prospective cross sectional analytical study was conducted at National Academy of Medical Sciences from February 2021 till June 2023. The study population were residents in General Surgery, Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, Dental and maxillofacial surgery and Ear, Nose Throat (ENT) /Head and Neck SurgeryPost Graduate programs who required skills training at National Academy of Medical Sciences. The data was collected by structured questionnaire and the data analysis was done using Microsoft Excel program and SPSS software for proportion of impact in different domains compared with Likert scale values. The P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Result: There was total 66 residents which included 29 from General surgery, 16 from Orthopedics and trauma, 10 from Maxillofacial surgery and 11 from ENT Head and neck surgery. The residents who felt that their elective surgical skills learning was affected was 57(86%) and the residents who felt that their emergency surgical skills learning were affected by COVID-19 pandemic was 43(65%). The residents of general surgery, orthopedic/ trauma surgery and ENT / Head and Neck surgery felt that most that their elective surgical skills learning was affected. The emergency surgical skills learning was affected most in ENT/Head and Neck surgery program.
Conclusion: There was a an impact of COVID-19 on learning elective skills. The learning of elective surgical skills was affected most during COVID-19 pandemic and felt most in general surgery, orthopedics/trauma surgery and ENT/head and neck training programs