A ray of sunshine in the COVID‑19 environment, with a virtual sunburst elective

Abstract

The COVID-19 environment created the opportunity to review and repurpose a one-month elective rotation for third year medical students in South Africa. A decision was made to develop a virtual self-paced online elective for 300 medical students. An online bouquet of free massive open online and sponsored courses centred around the roles of the competency framework of the Health Professions Council of South Africa was proposed.  On consultation, these roles of “Leader and Manager”, “Health advocate” and “Professional” were identified as ones that were not traditionally focussed on in the medical curriculum. The virtual elective consisted of one compulsory course related to leadership and management, two courses related to any of the identified roles, any two medical or non-medical courses of the student’s choice from the LinkedIn Learning platform and finally, the assessment. The assessment entailed an interactive Microsoft Excel template (a sunburst) that was specifically created for the students. The template consisted of a sunburst graphic that when populated with details of the courses completed, would update in real-time and provide a colourful illustration of the HPCSA roles and competencies that the students addressed in the elective, as well as alluding them to gaps, which they would need to strengthen in the remaining years of their medical studies. Apart from other lessons learnt, the sunburst Excel template – if adapted and used systematically each year – could be the mechanism for all health sciences students to reflect while also graphically see their progress in the HPCSA roles and associated competencies that they are expected to attain upon graduation.