LAUSR

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted clinical practice, healthcare organizations, and life. In the context that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” as disruptive as the pandemic has been to traditional practices – both clinically and educationally – opportunities have also presented. Clinical benefits have included the propulsion of clinical innovation, including development of novel vaccines; accelerated understanding of multiplex ventilation, etc. Approaches to educating students and other learners have also changed radically, with suspension of live teaching in most instances and a precipitous transition to virtual instruction. This perspective considers a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) associated with the coronavirus pandemic in healthcare, focusing on the implications for education. While the obvious disadvantages (weaknesses) regard the loss of face-to-face interaction with all of its consequences, e.g., isolation, risks to camaraderie, loss of hands-on training opportunities, and loss of in-person celebratory events like graduations and end-of-training celebrations, there are clearly offsetting strengths. These include growing experience with virtual teaching and virtual learning strategies; the invitation to codify best virtual teaching practices; a tightening of alignment between undergraduate and graduate medical education, e.g., around virtual interview strategies; and opportunities both for self-reflection and a commitment to act virtuously. On balance, the pandemic has created the opportunity – indeed the necessity – to innovate in practice and in education, making the landscape ripe for creative practice, new mastery, and the concomitant benefits to learners and to educators.