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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · J Neuroanaesth Crit Care 2020; 7(03): 160-162
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1717832
Perspective

Conduct of Neuroanesthesiology and Neurocritical Care Final Examination during COVID-19: Challenges and Experience!

Sourav Burman
1   Department of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
,
Gyaninder P. Singh 
1   Department of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
,
Keshav Goyal
1   Department of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
,
Arvind Chaturvedi
1   Department of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
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Introduction

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has significantly disrupted the medical education.[1] It has posed unique practical and logistic challenges pertaining to both medical education and examination process for accreditation.[2] This pandemic has not only compelled the medical educators to think how to provide continuity of teaching and certification assessments for trainees during the present times but may forever change the way how future physicians are educated.[1] [3] The novel challenge posed by the present scenario has prompted institutions across the world to move to web-based virtual platforms for medical teaching, conferences and multidisciplinary meets, and even for conduct of medical examinations.[1] [4]

Conduct of examination involves meticulous planning of the entire process and appropriate measures to uphold the sanctity of the examination process. University examinations in India for medical courses are held in two parts: theory (written examination) and clinical (viva-voce). Conduct of these examinations in a fair and most appropriate manner requires extensive preparation and execution. This is even more challenging during the current COVID-19 pandemic, as there is a pressing need to avoid contracting the disease and to ensure adequate safety and protection of the examiners as well as examinees at all times. Although the written examination can be conducted in a large ventilated space with maintenance of social distancing, hand hygiene, and mask etiquettes, the conduct of clinical practical examination is more onerous as it requires interaction between the examinee, patients, and the examiners. We share our experience on successfully conducting two virtual practical–clinical examinations (DM [Neuroanesthesiology and Critical Care], and Fellowship [Neurocritical Care] certification), in a safe manner during the present pandemic. We formulated an indigenous approach that was never used before for conduct of any examination in our department.



Publication History

Article published online:
16 October 2020

© 2020. Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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