Category: Education in Movement Disorders
Objective: To propose novel virtual mentorship program as a teaching tool to improve career skills among young Neurosurgeon and Ophthalmologists.
Background: COVID‐19 pandemic has caused unprecedented public health and economic challenges. Current public health, scientific and research communities are faced by the necessity to provide a fundamental contribution to tackle the crisis. During the past couple of years, we have witnessed an impressive number of initiatives to encourage networking opportunities, to foster virtual interactions between the different stakeholders involved (health care, industry, governments, academics, and patients), and to develop innovative strategies and collaborative infrastructures in support of clinical care, scientific research, and medical education. In this study, we propose and adopt a novel open and collaborative approach to join forces from around the world social media websites as an essential tool in the fight against the COVID‐19 crisis. We also investigated the involvement of crowds as innovation partners can be of great support in medical education.
Method: Virtual training program was designed and crowdsourcing was used using social media. Highly qualified senior physicians were paired with junior trainees/students through online workshops. Juniors were guided through online platforms and interactive sessions on clinical, research, interviewing, and CV writing skills.
Results: Program received an initial wave of 965 applicants from 18 countries. Total of 719 participants were provided a generic teaching program, while 246 were enrolled to a more personalized program where they received at least 20 sessions from their assigned mentors. All participants had significantly improved their set of skills as evidenced by their community work, clinical skills, and research output.
Conclusion: Online virtual training programs can help great skills transfer between skilled academic young neurosurgeon, ophthalmologists and young trainees worldwide.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
M. Elsayed, A. Motawei, A. Abdelrahman, A. Elgohary, B. Lashin, F. Monib, A. Abdelaal, E. Abdelazim, H. Basem. Lessons from the COVID-19 Lockdown: A Novel Mentorship Program for Young Neurosurgeons, Neurologists and Medical Students [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2024; 39 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/lessons-from-the-covid-19-lockdown-a-novel-mentorship-program-for-young-neurosurgeons-neurologists-and-medical-students/. Accessed June 14, 2025.« Back to 2024 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/lessons-from-the-covid-19-lockdown-a-novel-mentorship-program-for-young-neurosurgeons-neurologists-and-medical-students/