Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on clinical radiography and education.

INTRODUCTION: the impact of COVID-19 pandemic is enormous whether it is clinical radiography or educational activities including research work, teaching and clinical placements. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on radiography education in low-resource area from the perspective of students and educators. There are reports of increased workplace stress among healthcare workers including radiographers. METHODS: A online survey was conducted in 5 clinical radiography training institutions between October 2020 to April 2021. Conventional descriptive statistics, frequency and text analysis were undertaken according to the number of valid responses. The data collection instrument was developed by experienced radiography academics and was built on their experiences during pandemic. RESULT: out of 400 participants 275 students and 16 educators give their valid response. Most of them predominantly students did not find user-friendly, online platform for learning. Key challenges to radiography training during the pandemic includes- poor internet connectivity (73.8%), inadequate time for academic discussion (58%) and the reluctance of health facilities to accept new students for clinical placement(52.9%). This also leads to the disruption of normal academic calendar and also profoundly altered the way of learning. FINDINGS: The observation suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impact on clinical radiography education in India and other countries of similar resources availability. CONCLUSION: Both the teachers and students were not technically well waxed in handling online training delivery and learning respectively. Clinical radiography training institutions and centers need to customize approaches to education. They should use a blended mode of learning as well as the use of simulation to augment practical placement are new modes which will maximize the learning experience.