2020 - 2021 Program Updates

Anatomy instruction in the Foundations Curriculum is normally taught through a combination of in-person dissection labs and e-modules. Social distancing requirements necessitated a switch to a blended approach. In addition to anatomy e-modules, students were provided with a subscription to Acland’s Videos and Complete Anatomy, an online education resource that provides learners with comprehensive and interactive anatomy instruction. Faculty members developed a set of more than 20 virtual tutorials, facilitated by teaching assistants, to provide additional support to groups of approximately 35 students. The program began to offer optional, in-person labs with advance sign up and capacity restrictions. Anatomy assessments moved online in place of traditional lab bell-ringers.

When in-person learning was suspended in March 2020, Foundations students were not able to participate in in-person clinical skills instruction. Alongside the Year 3 cohort’s Transition to Clerkship course in August and September, clinical skills catch-up learning activities were provided to ensure that students’ clinical competencies were observed at the level expected of a newly minted Year 3 clerk. Students met in small groups, and were led by an experienced tutor for two half-days (Year 2) or four half-days (Year 1) of intensive and immersive clinical skills sessions, including formative feedback. Year 2 students also rejoined their Integrated Clinical Experience groups in April and May of 2021 to participate in four paired physical examination practice sessions, including tutor feedback.  

Clerks in Year 3 experienced a pause in their hospital-based clinical learning experiences. Though virtual learning continued while in-person clinical activities were suspended, it was clear that additional supports were needed to help clerks reintegrate into the clinical environment. A week-long Return to Clerkship curriculum was implemented to provide students with the knowledge and skills required to ensure patient and student safety upon re-entry to clinical sites. The curriculum included critical training on PPE donning and doffing and a refresh of anesthesia, emergency medicine and surgery technical and procedural skills. MD Program teachers drew on the knowledge and research of the early months of the pandemic to deliver content specific to COVID-19, including ethical considerations in treating patients and the provision of virtual care.

Classroom and bedside instruction were far from the only aspects of MD Program teaching and learning that required adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We adjusted our assessments to ensure social distancing requirements could be observed. At the same time, we provided students with formative feedback and ensured effective assessment of MD Program competencies. Nowhere was this more in evidence than in the shift to a virtual format for the Integrated Objective Structured Clinical Examination (iOSCE) for Clerkship students. In cooperation with the MD Office of Assessment and Evaluation, faculty administrators worked quickly to adjust the iOSCE stations to ensure that essential competencies could be accurately observed and measured in a virtual environment. The MD Program utilized its partnership with the Standardized Patient Program to ensure the availability and training of simulated patients for the successful administration of the iOSCE.

Building on its history of innovation using the Modified Personal Interview (MPI) for admissions, the MD Program embraced remote interviewing for all applicants. During the 2021 admissions cycle, the entire cohort of more than 600 applicants to the MD and MD/PhD degrees completed a new Virtual Modified Personal Interview (vMPI). What began as a quick transition from traditional on-campus interviews in the middle of a pandemic-interrupted application cycle became the standard for all admissions interviews.

Over the course of three days, each MD interviewee participated in two asynchronous sets of interviews using the VidCruiter platform. Aspiring MD/PhD students completed one asynchronous and one synchronous interview each. As with the traditional MPI, the vMPI consists of four independent interviews assessed by four different raters closely related to the University of Toronto MD Program.

On August 1, 2020, the MD Program welcomed five Academy Career and Transitions (ACT) Leads as a key members of the career advising system. These academy-based physician faculty members – two at Wightman-Berris and one at each of the other academies – provide timely, equitable, and consistent guidance on career and electives planning for students at all stages of the program. In their first year, the ACT Leads organized mandatory advising sessions with students at the anchor clinical sites associated with their academies. Building upon existing career advising supports and programming, the ACT Leads are available to meet one-on-one with students in their off-campus academy sites for confidential electives and CaRMS match advising and counseling. This embedded approach to career and electives advising will enable the program to monitor and respond to emerging student concerns on career advising and preparation for the residency match.