Lessons Learned from a Pandemic: One Medical School’s Response to COVID 19

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted medical education. Social distancing prevented students from gathering in any setting. Teaching became less effective due to lack of staff, cancellation of procedures, transition to telehealth and shortages of personal protective equipment. Medical schools’ responses to previous lockdowns are not well documented. On March 13th 2020, all universities in Israel were closed and a transition to online learning was implemented. All clinical rotations were temporarily suspended. We describe changes to teaching and learning during the pandemic, and the evaluation of these changes.Methods: Several surveys were performed. Selected faculty members were asked to comment on the transition to online learning, and assess which practices could possibly be adopted for future use.Results: Overall satisfaction with online learning was high. High satisfaction was also reported regarding the delivery of online lectures, efficient transition to online teaching, and the maintenance of academic excellence despite the challenges of COVID-19. Twenty-three percent of medical students preferred to continue exclusive online learning in the future. Forty-five percent advocated for blended learning, mainly online. Selected challenges and opportunities are discussed.Conclusions: The rapid transition to online teaching and learning was successful. Lessons learned and recommendations for the future are presented.