The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted teaching in medical schools across the world. Online learning has become the core method of teaching during this pandemic. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of this mode of education among medical students in India. A survey was conducted by distributing online questionnaires to medical students across India. Data gathered from the survey was analyzed using SPSS® version 16. The overall response rate of survey was 58.4%. Practical training was most severely affected by online classes (93.32%) as compared to theory classes (60.93%). A total of 71.98% students agreed that canceling of physical medical conferences adversely affected the building up of their resumes while only 28.79% agreed that virtual conferences and meetings enhanced their learning. A total of 56.81% agreed that online exams adversely affected their performance. A total of 46.79% feels that online classes using simulated patients and simulation technology is not useful but 41.90% think that simulated teaching should be a part of the medical curriculum. A majority of the students (87.66%) had technical issues with online classes and 89.72% complained of poor concentration during online teaching due to distractions. A total of ~75% felt that the pandemic has adversely affected the availability of research opportunities and development of skills, ethics, communication, and behavior. Online education has adversely affected all aspects of learning, performance in exams, research, and the overall future plans of students. Moving forward from this pandemic, in order to maximize the benefits of both face-to-face and online teaching, we suggest medical schools resort to a hybrid pattern.
Keywords: COVID-19; Knowledge; Online learning; Pandemic; Perception; Skills; Surgical education; Undergraduate medical students.
© Association of Surgeons of India 2021.