COVID-19 and neurological training in Europe: from early challenges to future perspectives

The worldwide SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is dramatically affecting health systems with consequences also for neurological residency training. Here we report early experiences and challenges that European neurologists and residents faced. The breadth of the pandemic and the social restrictions induced substantial modifications in both inpatient and outpatient clinical care and academic activities as well, adversely affecting our residency training. On the other hand we see also opportunities, such as gaining more clinical and professional skills. All these drastic and sudden changes lead us to reconsider some educational aspects of our training program that need to be improved in order to better prepare the neurologists of the future to manage unexpected and large emergency situations like the one we are living in these days. A reconsideration of the neurological training program could be beneficial to guarantee high standard level of the residency training in this period and beyond.