摘要 Abstract

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK had a significant effect on university education, including on medical education. At the height of the ‘first wave’ of COVID in 2020, clinical education in Oxford University’s medical school stopped entirely for a period of time – an almost unprecedented event. In very quick time, and in the busiest period of the academic year, the entire ‘Medical Ethics and Law’ thread course for clinical students transitioned to online learning. In this presentation, I will give a broad overview of this transitional process, outlining the basic medical ethics educational model in place in Oxford University’s Clinical School prior to the onset of the pandemic, and then describing how this model evolved during the different waves of the pandemic between 2020-2021. I will also identify and discuss broader learning points for medical ethics education regarding the value of online vs. face-to-face teaching and learning, and will consider the case for a sophisticated, blended learning approach moving forward.