Originally published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine

Guo, M. Z., Allen, J., Sakumoto, M., Pahwa, A., & Santhosh, L., June 16, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted medical education, accelerating the shift to online and asynchronous learning methods. This transition has highlighted persistent disparities in healthcare, particularly for marginalized communities, and presents an opportunity to reshape medical training. As medical students and educators, the authors propose using the innovations in virtual learning from the pandemic to better equip future physicians to address health disparities and improve patient care, especially in underserved populations.

Key ideas include:

• The pandemic exposed systemic inequalities, with minority groups (e.g., Black and Latinx populations) disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and rural areas struggling with physician shortages.
• Medical education can leverage virtual and asynchronous learning to address these disparities by integrating more public health education and focusing on social determinants of health (SDOH).
• Virtual tools like flipped classrooms and telehealth can diversify discussions, improve accessibility, and prepare students for the realities of healthcare in a post-pandemic world.
• The authors stress the importance of addressing biases in medical education materials, especially regarding race and disability and using virtual spaces to bring diverse voices into discussions about health equity.
• They also highlight the need to provide better support for medical students’ mental health, as virtual learning has increased isolation and burnout, particularly for students from underrepresented groups.

Healthcare professionals involved in shaping future medical training and healthcare policy and academic leaders focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion in medical education are encouraged to review this article.

Guo, M. Z., Allen, J., Sakumoto, M., Pahwa, A., & Santhosh, L. (2022). Reimagining Undergraduate Medical Education in a Post-COVID-19 Landscape. Journal of general internal medicine, 37(9), 2297–2301. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-022-07503-7