Anthony Bui, BS; Samuel Tesch, BS; Margaret Zwick, BA; Kurtis J. Swanson, MD
WMJ. 2023;122(5):411-414
The COVID-19 pandemic is a generation defining, history-altering event whose impact is still being felt today. One group significantly affected by the pandemic is medical trainees. Peri-COVID trainees have unprecedented experiences in this brave new post-COVID world, exacerbated by policies and proceedings in terms of how the hospital system functioned in the early post-COVID timeframe, quarantines, utilization of virtual and telemedicine modalities not only for patient care but also for trainee education. With COVID – and perhaps future endemic/pandemic events to come – drawing from these experiences can serve to guide educators and mentors alike on how best to address future challenges to foster trainee growth into competent, fulfilled physicians.
For this commentary, I invited three medical students I had worked with to reflect on their experiences training during COVID-19. Their accounts are of particular interest as these students are in the class of 2024 and, thus, have received all of their medical training post-March 2020 when the pandemic truly took hold in Wisconsin.