To the Editor:
We applaud the work by Lewis and colleagues,1 reported in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, on the educational efforts instituted within their program to address the challenges faced by cardiothoracic surgical trainees during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
While we become flexible and innovative in educating and evaluating our trainees, the importance of the online National Thoracic Surgical Curriculum2 becomes more apparent than ever. The beneficial impact of the Curriculum has been shown, with cardiothoracic surgical trainees who used the Curriculum more frequently exhibiting greater improvements on in-training examination scores.3 Furthermore, the comprehensive Curriculum provides not only e-learning content, but also structure and objective data that educators can use to standardize and document trainee proficiency.
Alternative forms of educational material should be used, including online open-access videos, webinars, social media,4 and other digital platforms. Lewis and colleagues1 rightly point out that telemedicine does not require cessation of learning from ambulatory scenarios; trainees should discuss teaching points with faculty. Similarly, a lack of operative cases does not require cessation of technical training; trainees can engage in simulation with feedback through teleproctoring. For trainees redeployed to alternative duties, a lack of time on service does not require cessation of learning because this is an opportunity to enhance critical care skills. Finally, although it is important to ensure continuity of education, it is essential for educators to be mindful of the impact that a pandemic may have on trainee safety, mental health, and well-being.
Ultimately, more than ever, there is a need for a centralized approach to the adoption of a multi-institutional educational curriculum with sharing of resources to transcend geospatial and temporal limitations. This new learning environment provides an opportunity to develop novel education strategies and leverage existing online curricular platforms to create novel multi-institutional endeavors, thus supporting the premise of the Thoracic Education Cooperative Group (TECoG)5—that with multi-institutional efforts, we can accomplish more. Now is the time for our community to unite and leave behind the limitations imposed by institutional silos for the educational benefit of our trainees and specialty.
References
- 1.Lewis E.E., Taylor L.J., Hermsen J.L., McCarthy D.P., Fiedler A.G. Cardiothoracic education in the time of COVID-19: how I teach it. Ann Thorac Surg. 2020;110:362–363. doi: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2020.04.002. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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