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Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 has imposed many shared limitations on medical and health education. Just like other health professions programs at most institutions, the Qatar University health cluster (QU Health) applied a containment approach and shifted all learning online, and onsite training was replac...

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Autores principales: Bawadi, Hiba, Shami, Rula, El-Awaisi, Alla, Al-Moslih, Ayad, Abdul Rahim, Hanan, Du, Xiangyun, Moawad, Joyce, Al-Jayyousi, Ghadir Fakhri
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9922901/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36793877
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2023.1107693
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author Bawadi, Hiba
Shami, Rula
El-Awaisi, Alla
Al-Moslih, Ayad
Abdul Rahim, Hanan
Du, Xiangyun
Moawad, Joyce
Al-Jayyousi, Ghadir Fakhri
author_facet Bawadi, Hiba
Shami, Rula
El-Awaisi, Alla
Al-Moslih, Ayad
Abdul Rahim, Hanan
Du, Xiangyun
Moawad, Joyce
Al-Jayyousi, Ghadir Fakhri
author_sort Bawadi, Hiba
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 has imposed many shared limitations on medical and health education. Just like other health professions programs at most institutions, the Qatar University health cluster (QU Health) applied a containment approach and shifted all learning online, and onsite training was replaced by virtual internships (VIs) during the first wave of the pandemic. Our study aims to explore the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their influence on the professional identity (PI) of the health cluster students from the College of Medicine, the College of Health Sciences, and the College of Pharmacy at Qatar University. METHODS: A qualitative approach was employed. In total, eight focus groups with students (N = 43) and 14 semi-structured interviews with clinical instructors from all the health cluster colleges were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed following the inductive approach. RESULTS: The major challenges reported by students were mainly related to the lack of the required skills for navigating the VI, professional and social stressors, the nature of VIs and the quality of learning, technical and environmental issues, and the development of students' professional identity in an alternative internship environment. The challenges relating to the development of professional identity included: limited clinical (practical) experience, a lack of experience in fighting a pandemic, a lack of communication and feedback, and a lack of confidence in meeting the internship's goals. A model was constructed to represent these findings. DISCUSSION: The findings are important in identifying the inevitable barriers to virtual learning for health professions students and provide a better understanding of how such challenges and different experiences would be affecting the development of their PI. Hence, students, instructors, and policymakers alike should strive to minimize these barriers. Since physical interactions and patient contact are indispensable components of clinical teaching, these extraordinary times demand innovations involving technology and simulation-based teaching. There is a need for more studies that are focused on determining and measuring the short- and long-term effects of the VI on students' PI development.
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spelling pubmed-99229012023-02-14 Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University Bawadi, Hiba Shami, Rula El-Awaisi, Alla Al-Moslih, Ayad Abdul Rahim, Hanan Du, Xiangyun Moawad, Joyce Al-Jayyousi, Ghadir Fakhri Front Med (Lausanne) Medicine INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 has imposed many shared limitations on medical and health education. Just like other health professions programs at most institutions, the Qatar University health cluster (QU Health) applied a containment approach and shifted all learning online, and onsite training was replaced by virtual internships (VIs) during the first wave of the pandemic. Our study aims to explore the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their influence on the professional identity (PI) of the health cluster students from the College of Medicine, the College of Health Sciences, and the College of Pharmacy at Qatar University. METHODS: A qualitative approach was employed. In total, eight focus groups with students (N = 43) and 14 semi-structured interviews with clinical instructors from all the health cluster colleges were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed following the inductive approach. RESULTS: The major challenges reported by students were mainly related to the lack of the required skills for navigating the VI, professional and social stressors, the nature of VIs and the quality of learning, technical and environmental issues, and the development of students' professional identity in an alternative internship environment. The challenges relating to the development of professional identity included: limited clinical (practical) experience, a lack of experience in fighting a pandemic, a lack of communication and feedback, and a lack of confidence in meeting the internship's goals. A model was constructed to represent these findings. DISCUSSION: The findings are important in identifying the inevitable barriers to virtual learning for health professions students and provide a better understanding of how such challenges and different experiences would be affecting the development of their PI. Hence, students, instructors, and policymakers alike should strive to minimize these barriers. Since physical interactions and patient contact are indispensable components of clinical teaching, these extraordinary times demand innovations involving technology and simulation-based teaching. There is a need for more studies that are focused on determining and measuring the short- and long-term effects of the VI on students' PI development. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9922901/ /pubmed/36793877 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2023.1107693 Text en Copyright © 2023 Bawadi, Shami, El-Awaisi, Al-Moslih, Abdul Rahim, Du, Moawad and Al-Jayyousi. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Medicine
Bawadi, Hiba
Shami, Rula
El-Awaisi, Alla
Al-Moslih, Ayad
Abdul Rahim, Hanan
Du, Xiangyun
Moawad, Joyce
Al-Jayyousi, Ghadir Fakhri
Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University
title Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University
title_full Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University
title_fullStr Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University
title_full_unstemmed Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University
title_short Exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: A view from Qatar University
title_sort exploring the challenges of virtual internships during the covid-19 pandemic and their potential influence on the professional identity of health professions students: a view from qatar university
topic Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9922901/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36793877
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2023.1107693
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