key: cord-0713374-6ze0zyf5 authors: Tawfik, Eman A.; van Alfen, Nens; Cartwright, Michael S.; Inkpen, Peter; Kerasnoudis, Antonios; Lieba‐Samal, Doris; Winter, Natalie; Walker, Francis O. title: Virtual neuromuscular ultrasound courses during COVID‐19 pandemic: Leveraging technology to enhance learning opportunities date: 2021-09-24 journal: Muscle Nerve DOI: 10.1002/mus.27415 sha: 7e24127f931f416f60ff39d4a7caa91bdb9a77a3 doc_id: 713374 cord_uid: 6ze0zyf5 INTRODUCTION/AIMS: Hands‐on supervised training is essential for learning diagnostic ultrasound. Unfortunately, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic led to suspension of in‐person training courses. As a result, many hands‐on training courses were converted into virtual courses during the pandemic. Several reports regarding virtual ultrasound courses exist, but none has addressed virtual neuromuscular ultrasound courses, their design, or participants' views of this form of training. Therefore, the aims of this study were: (1) to determine the feasibility of conducting virtual neuromuscular ultrasound courses during the COVID‐19 pandemic; and (2) to report the positive and negative aspects of the courses through the analyses of the responses of post‐course surveys. METHODS: Two virtual neuromuscular ultrasound courses, basic and intermediate level, were conducted by the Egyptian Neuromuscular Ultrasound society during August 2020. Post‐course, the attendees were directed to an electronic survey that consisted of eight questions. Ninety‐three responses (23.8%) were obtained from the survey of the basic course and 156 responses (44.4%) were obtained from the survey of the intermediate course. RESULTS: Ninety‐eight percent of the respondents to basic course surveys, and 100% of the respondents to the intermediate course survey found the courses useful or very useful. DISCUSSION: This report demonstrates the utility of virtual neuromuscular ultrasound courses for those participants willing to respond to a survey and describes a proposed design for such courses. Although hands‐on supervised ultrasound training is ideal, virtual courses can be useful alternatives to in‐person training when in‐person interaction is restricted. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic negatively impacted health and economics as well as in-person medical training. Almost all scheduled hands-on ultrasound courses were suspended during the pandemic. As a result, the Egyptian Neuromuscular Ultrasound Society converted the in-person neuromuscular courses that were planned to be held in August 2020 into virtual courses. A few reports have documented the effectiveness of virtual education in different ultrasound domains, 1-3 and one has addressed residents' neuromusculoskeletal education via teleguidance technology, 4 but none has reported the designs or participants' views of virtual neuromuscular ultrasound courses. Therefore, the authors' aims in this report were to: (1) The learning objectives and the curriculum of the two courses were derived from the published guidelines for neuromuscular ultrasound training. 5 Table 1 . The videos that were pre-recorded via video camera or the offline recording software were uploaded on YouTube (Google; Mountain View, CA) prior to the courses. During the scheduled demonstration sessions, the attendees were directed to a link to view the pre-recorded videos and they were instructed to return to the main platform to continue the course. Each lecture/demonstration session was followed by a 10-min live "question and answer" sessions. An additional discussion session was also provided at the end of each day. The attendees submitted their questions in the "questions and answers" chat box on their screens and the speakers answered questions instantly online. At the end of each course, the attendees were directed to an anonymous electronic survey (Google Forms). The same survey was used for the two courses and included eight questions. The second question included two sub-questions to rate the course program and the organization, and the third question included subsections for rating each lecture ( Table 2 ). The responses were then collected and analyzed. After the courses, certificates of attendance were sent to the attendees via email after verifying attendance through the attendance report generated by the platform. The two courses were recorded, and the recordings were uploaded to an online channel created specifically for the courses. A link to the recordings was sent via email to the course attendees to allow them to view any missed sessions for 3 mo after the event. In total, 534 registrants registered to the basic course and 406 regis- (Figure 1 ). When asked to rate the degree of usefulness of each lecture/session, more than 90% of the respondents found all lectures either extremely useful or useful. The best aspects, the worst aspects, and the impact of the courses as judged by the respondents are shown in Table 3 T A B L E 3 Best and worst aspects of the courses and courses' impact on attendees' future practice Best aspects Worst aspects Impact on attendees' future practice The role of virtual ultrasound courses post-pandemic is unknown yet, but the authors believe that they will remain a part of the learning process in the future. A hybrid form of courses could be an option in the transition phase before returning to the normal pre-pandemic life. Even after the pandemic ends, hybrid courses may remain an attractive option as they combine the best features of online and in-person learning, and can be more flexible and cost-effective compared to the traditional in-person learning. Virtual courses could be utilized as a preparatory step before the practical hands-on training to save time during in-person courses for extensive hands-on training. They could also be used for distant training to provide a mentor in areas where no mentor is available. Moreover, they could be implemented in certification programs instead of the online pre-recorded modules that lack live interaction between the instructor and the participants. None of the authors has any conflict of interest to disclose. We confirm that we have read the Journalʼs position on issues involved in ethical publication and affirm that this report is consistent with those guidelines. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author ORCID Eman A. Tawfik https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3964-5442 Nens van Alfen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7839-8125 Antonios Kerasnoudis https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3135-4413 Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of the article at the publisher's website. 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