UVA Medical School News

By F. Winston Gwathmey, Jr., MD

COVID continues to disrupt the routine in academic orthopaedic programs. Away rotations and in-person interviews are essential to the process of matching medical students into orthopaedic surgery residency programs.

In a normal year, medical students participate in four-week rotations at programs of interest to learn more about orthopaedics and the training programs offered. Many consider these rotations as “auditions” for the residency program as students are afforded the opportunity to demonstrate their aptitude and work ethic to programs, as well as determine how they fit in with the residents. A considerable number of residents in programs across the county rotated at the programs in which they ultimately matched. Currently at UVA, 21 of 25 residents were rotators.

Unfortunately, COVID has resulted in the cancellation of all away rotations for the academic year 2020/2021. Additionally, all residency interviews will be virtual this year. This means that applicants may not have the opportunity to physically visit programs to which they have applied. It is possible that a program may match a full class of residents in 2021 who have never stepped foot in the hospital or town in which they will train for five years. Obviously, this is a highly unusual situation.

The Orthopaedic Residency Program at the University of Virginia has attempted to address this situation by creating a virtual curriculum for interested medical students (https://med.virginia.edu/orthopaedic-surgery/orthopaedic-education/medical-student-rotations/virtual-curriculum/). The goal of the virtual curriculum is to provide student-level orthopaedic education, showcase our faculty and residents, and allow students to learn about our program.

During the nine-week session, every division within the department is highlighted with a faculty talk and case presentations pertaining to that subspecialty. Additionally, each session includes a “resident life” discussion highlighting an element of the training program. Many of the sessions have been interactive with breakout rooms of residents and students allowing for more discussion. Despite the unusual circumstances, the curriculum has been engaging and fun for students as well as our residents and faculty.

We have indexed our curriculum on the UVA Ortho YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxOvvr1YSg8RlOb532VfP_g). We are now in the process of planning our virtual interviews for January and February.

There is not much good that comes from a worldwide pandemic. However, the evolution that COVID has prompted has been a silver lining. Nonetheless, we are looking forward to a more normal routine in the future.