The impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate medical education

Abstract

Coronavirus disease COVID-19 upended the whole world with everyone needing to practice social distancing, and quarantine. These measures affected education in general, and medical education in particular. Educators were faced with the dilemma of protecting the students versus fulfilling the mission of preparing qualified future healthcare providers. In Lebanon, the seven medical schools had to act quickly to set up distance education in response to the requested closure of universities and social distancing measures, in a way that preserves student education despite the challenging times. This paper will focus on the changes introduced to the curricula of the undergraduate medical education programs in Lebanon, involving both the teaching and learning facets and the assessment component at the preclinical and clinical phases.