Virtual class room as a learning format in a family medicine residency program: Lessons learned in Palestine

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Family Medicine Development
• International Health Collaboration

Background:

• The Family Medicine (FM) specialty in Palestine faces significant geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges, hindering its development.
• Volunteer British General Practitioner (BGP) trainers collaborated with Palestinian FM faculty to address these limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an online tutorial program (OTP) and a novel evaluation framework, E-QUaL (Evaluation-Quality, Utilization and Learning).
• To enhance Palestinian residents' patient-centered communication and clinical skills through a collaborative educational initiative.

Main Methods:

• Facilitation and evaluation of three online tutorial program (OTP) cycles between 2017-2020 at An Najah National University (ANNU), Palestine.
• Collection and qualitative analysis of data from focus groups and online chats to assess program effectiveness.

Main Results:

• Joint development and facilitation of the OTP significantly improved faculty skills and advanced clinically oriented education.
• The collaborative approach and E-QUaL framework facilitated identification and mitigation of challenges in educational content and virtual learning.
• The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated training quality improvements through an accessible virtual platform.

Conclusions:

• The developed online tutorial program and E-QUaL framework offer a potentially useful model for enhancing medical education in other low-resource settings.
• Continuous quality improvement addressed challenges like volunteer reliance, internet instability, and cultural differences, demonstrating program adaptability.
• The initiative fostered faculty development and improved the quality of medical training in a challenging environment.