Submission ID 78213

Code OC-2-2
At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Category Medical Education
Type Oral
Will the presenter be a: Other
Presenter Other Education Investigator / Centre Researcher
Title Covid-19 and the Shift to Virtual Care: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Professionalism in Health Professions Education
Background/Purpose The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of virtual technologies (video, telephone, email, etc.) in healthcare. The purpose of this study was to identify consequences of this shift as a way to seek potential educational affordances.
Methods Data collected included public documents and 19 in-depth interviews with health care workers, administrators, and leaders representing four clinical sites across two academic hospitals. Analysis drew upon Michel Foucault's theory of Critical Discourse Analysis to identify shifts in power, boundaries, and practices.
Results The adoption of virtual technologies has led to unexpected changes in patient-clinician interactions and professional identity. At the patient-clinician level, patients seemed to be less "present", to be multi-tasking in appointments, and as a result assigning less importance to virtual care appointments, which impacted communication practices and safety. At the professional identity level, there appeared to be a shift in power in the patient-clinician relationship that might affect the construction of professionalism, professional identity and what it meant to be a competent professional. Finally, virtual care work practices seemed to be removing a liminal space between meetings in which clinicians mentally transitioned between issues, contexts and roles.
Discussion Early signs suggest a possible shift in what it means to be a professional, with implications for the patient-clinician relationship. This may require reconsideration of future curricular needs in Health Professions Education.
Keyword 1 Virtual Care
Keyword 2 Critical Discourse Analysis
Keyword 3 Professionalism
Abstract content most relevant to: (check all that apply) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) (faculty development, CME)
Abstract Track - First Choice Virtual Care
Authors Robert Paul
David Rojas
Mitchell Irving
Cynthia Whitehead
Tina Martimianakis
Catherine Wang
Mark Bayley
Alejandro Berlin
Peter Rossos
Karen Leslie
Roberto Mendoza-Londono
Lauren Chad
Ramanan Aiyadurai
Robert Paul
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