Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Pathology Residents/Trainees in North America: A Survey-Based Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on resident training and education in the field of Pathology. This study aims to identify the tangible effects and resultant changes in education for Pathology trainees that have resulted from the pandemic. Design An electronic survey regarding Pathology trainee perceptions and experiences in relation to COVID-19 was created via Google Forms. The questionnaire was distributed to the pathology trainees via Twitter and email. The survey was also shared with all Pathology residency program coordinators across the USA and Canada. Results One hundred forty-five trainees responded to the questionnaire. 37.6% reported a significant decrease in specimen volume, whereas 43.3% reported a slight decrease in specimen volume. 18.3% reported the cancellation of educational lectures before shifting to a virtual platform for didactic purposes. However, 74.6% reported shifting all educational activities to virtual platforms. 35% cited cancellations of grand rounds, whereas 18.2% reported cancellations of grand rounds led by guest speakers. 53.5% took COVID-19 tests, and 22.7% were quarantined. 100% reported a change in sign-out culture. Conclusions This pandemic has significantly impacted pathology training in various aspects, including training, education, and well-being. Residents harbored anxiety and stress regarding board exam delays or uncertainties, inadequate exam preparation time, family separation, and compromised safety. The exact quantification of educational loss varied from program to program. A significant decrease in specimen volume and detrimental changes in sign-out culture are indicators of compromised resident education due to the pandemic. This pandemic has extended the use of digital pathology and virtual platforms to a higher extent. Free virtual educational resources provided by various pathology organizations were critically important interventions during this pandemic, contributing to resident education. The pandemic has shown that developing a comprehensive infrastructure to overcome the loss of educational opportunities is of paramount importance to alleviate stress and anxiety among trainees.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".