Features
Virtual learning – moving forward Usman Ahmed
COVID-19 has brought about carnage that has tested our profession, our patients and our communities to limits we never knew we had. As the first wave reared its head, we didn’t just witness the acute and profound impact on healthcare of COVID-19 but also the fallout and consequences on all other aspects of the NHS and society. Usman Ahmed is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon with a special interest in Lower Limb Revision Arthroplasty at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford. He is Head of Virtual Learning for Health Education West Midlands.
A
s clinicians up and down the nation mobilised to serve the NHS, one area that was severely hit was training. Yet as we know, necessity is the mother of all inventions, and with that the pre-COVID dabbling in virtual learning suddenly became a collective commitment to put together something, anything, to allow ongoing teaching. Surgical training in particular was hit by COVID-19 with more cautious consultant led emergency surgery and a complete halt to elective work, which in orthopaedics is often more significant than other specialties.
38 | JTO | Volume 08 | Issue 04 | December 2020 | boa.ac.uk
Virtual learning is not new. Globally universities, schools, public organisations and private companies have developed or acquired platforms to facilitate online learning. The odds are that you’ve probably participated in it without even knowing as many mandatory training modules are on such platforms. But this pandemic is probably the first time that the spotlight has been shone brightly on the role of virtual learning in postgraduate medical education, and a plethora of new terminology is being thrown around with more gusto than ever before.
