The implementation of a national online teaching platform for UK trainee otolaryngologists

Abstract

Disruption to face-to-face postgraduate surgical teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the need for a virtual learning platform for UK otolaryngology trainees. With this impetus, the Association of Otolaryngologists in Training (AOT) created an educational platform on YouTube™ on which to assemble all official online teaching occurring in the UK alongside teaching from international sources that reliably reflected the UK Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Programme (ISCP) in otolaryngology. Since its commencement in April 2020, contributions have come from UK regional deaneries, the National Association of Programme Directors in ENT, and UK and international ear, nose and throat subspecialist organisations. The AOT has edited and annotated webinars, produced transcripts, mapped each individual webinar to the ISCP, maintained a calendar of events and recorded usage data for platform content.