The new normal: Medical education during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

The "new normal" is a trite axiom that has permeated every sphere impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, within and beyond healthcare.Healthcare has quickly adopted necessary changes in the delivery of care, using virtual clinical encounters, recruiting an expanded workforce, disrupting longstanding hospital processes, and embracing the palpable existential angst associated with this "new normal."Medical learners have also been significantly impacted at this time.The experiences of medical students and residents across the globe generally vary based on clinical, regional, and personnel needs.Medical schools and residency programs have had to quickly respond and adapt to the spread of the pandemic by making rapid decisions with the best interests of faculty, staff, learners, and the public in mind.End-users, such as learners, appear to have been excluded from these decision-making processes.In response to the pandemic, medical schools and residency programs have removed medical students from the clinical environment, redistributed residents throughout the health system, and moved learning and assessments to online platforms.This represents a substantial disruption to the status quo of medical education.