What We’ve Lost
Before Covid, I started working on a short animated cartoon about medical school.
I created a somewhat challenging scene that gave me the chance to push my animation software (ToonBoom Harmony) and my workstation to its limits.
It was a quick pan across how I recall our first-year classes of medical school. When Covid hit, the workload of trying to keep our office functioning pushed my fun hobbies to the side. The project is unfinished. Recently, I went back to look at it in its rough form.
It is now so sad.
This scene will not happen this year.
It may not happen for a couple of years. Most learning will be virtual. There will be some small meetings with distancing, but this will be a minor part. How will these new students cope? How will they even get to know each other? I’ve heard the comment: “These kids are different than us! They’re used to this.”
I don’t know.
It feels like such a loss.
In the corporate world, most learning is online. Education lags. Students will be better prepared for the working world (to the extent that there is one) if they learn to learn at home.
Medicine and health care in general are of course different. However, many disciplines such as psychiatry and psychiatry are being done remotely and will probably continue in that mode from now on. A good proportion of can be done remotely as well,