映竹 陳

  • The Rise of Online Medical Education During COVID-19: The International Craniofacial Chang Gung Webinar

    Background
    International travel has been radically disrupted by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), leaving traditional medical conferences on a two-year hiatus. The International Craniofacial Chang Gung Group (ICC) was thus created to disseminate knowledge related to craniofacial surgery. This study aims to reveal how webinars fundamentally transformed the traditional format of medical conferences.

    Material and method
    43 ICC weekend webinars held between December 13th of 2020 to October 2nd of 2022 are documented and reviewed. Questionnaire intended for improvements of the webinar series are designed and sent to ICC members. The survey focused on how the attitude and usage habit toward webinars have changed between pre-COVID and COVID-19 times. The study collected and analyzed the responses for a better understanding of the experience and satisfaction rate on attending ICC webinars.

    Results
    The webinars covered a variety of topics related to craniofacial surgery. In total, 43 webinars were included for analysis. The mean number of attendees at each webinar was 86.7. In total, 111 respondents were more satisfied (4.25 ± 0.72 out of 5) with ICC webinars than with other media of online meetings (P < .001). In total, 89.2% of respondents were willing to continue attending ICC webinars after COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.

    Conclusion
    Webinars are an effective format for imparting educational information and knowledge. With experiences of holding online webinars, ICC proved that virtual meetings will continue to be the most effective way of learning. High-quality webinars will be the key to future continuing medical education.
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