The covid-19 Pandemic:opportunity and challenge Describe the within 1500 character
Answers
Answer
The COVID-19 crisis has affected societies and economies around the globe and will permanently reshape our world as it continues to unfold. While the fallout from the crisis is both amplifying familiar risks and creating new ones, change at this scale also creates new openings for managing systemic challenges, and ways to build back better.
This collection of essays draws on the diverse insights of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report Advisory Board to look ahead and across a broad range of issues – trade, governance, health, labour, technology to name a few – and consider where the balance of risk and opportunity may come out. It offers decision-makers a comprehensive picture of expected long-term changes, and inspiration to leverage the opportunities this crisis offers to improve the state of the worlds.
In late December 2019, a new coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, China [1], and spread rapidly to other parts of the world. The first cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Iran were reported on February 19, 2020, and the number of patients had increased to 429,193 by September 22, 2020. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak to be pandemic. On September 22, 2020, the number of cases of infection worldwide exceeded 31 million, and more than 215 countries were affected by the virus. The virus affected the daily lives of many people around the world and had negative effects on all aspects of human life –effects that were unprecedented for most people.
One of the areas most affected by the virus is education, which has been halted or slowed dramatically by restrictive laws and the establishment of social distancing. Educational institutions have been closed in 182 countries, and conventional university education has been hindered. In addition, more than 90% of the world’s student population has been affected by the virus, and the pressure on higher education systems to change their approach to distance learning (e-learning) has been maximized. In response to this threat, all educational systems and professionals are trying to act appropriately by finding effective solutions to minimize the adverse effects of the pandemic on the field of education.
This challenge is compounded in medical school, as it has not only led to an increase in demands for clinical and administrative assistance from medical schools [11] but has also put additional pressure on these institutions to adopt appropriate teaching strategies for medical students. In other words, in this situation, in addition to their crucial role in combating this epidemic, medical schools and health professionals must ensure that their educational programs remain appropriate and effective. Moreover, they need to maintain high-quality education for students at all levels. For this reason, universities and medical schools have suspended face-to-face, classroom-based teaching, and regular tutorials in order to reduce the risk of infection, and have forced professors and students to use online and virtual education until the epidemic ceases. In other words, traditional education patterns have never been challenged in this way.
In Iran, with the outbreak of the disease, all medical universities suspended face-to-face classes, and education has continued in virtual environments. Thus, the classes in this period were held both online and offline via pre-recorded lectures. In online classes, due to the speed limit of the Internet, usually, only the voices of the lecturer and the student were exchanged. In the offline format, instructors usually record narrations on their PowerPoint slides and upload them on the LMS for student access.
By May 2020, more than 5393 courses, 6971 students per course, and 12,231 professors per course have been registered or invited to register in the Navid system. This system has several capabilities, including the possibility of holding simultaneous online or offline classes, uploading content, and so on.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not the first experience to affect education, especially medical education; the SARS epidemic of 2003 impacted education, albeit to a less drastic extent. However, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be much broader and long-lasting. Therefore, studying the challenges and opportunities created by the current pandemic in medical education can help us adapt more effectively to the new conditions, and ensure the continuation of education. It will also help prepare us to minimize disruptions in medical education in the event of an emergency. This poses a special opportunity for medical education faculties to examine the impact of the crisis on medical teaching and training, and to ensure quality medical education even during an epidemic [18]. Thus, in addition to the need to identify challenges for immediate elimination to minimize damage, such crises also provide an opportunity for faculties to use new technologies in medical education. Therefore, the present study examines the challenges and opportunities created by the COVID-19 pandemic in medical education.