Technology-Enhanced Simulation-Based Learning in Teaching Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery during the Covid-19 Pandemic

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected all disciplines of life, including medical education. In response to the worsening situation due to the pandemic, lockdowns were implemented in the Philippines and even globally to curb the dissemination of the disease. The schools were closed, and even the face-to-face or in-person clinical rotations of the clinical clerkship program for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine remains suspended indefinitely. A fully online simulation-based learning (SBL) activity on spontaneous vaginal delivery (SVD) was developed, implemented, and evaluated. It aimed to replace the lost direct patient contact of the clinical clerks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an action research study and employed a descriptive mixed- method approach, following the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model. The research participants were the 18 Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) clinical clerks from Batch 2021 at a local university in Metro Manila, Philippines. This study showed that the simulation activity using an improvised researcher-developed birthing simulator improved the participants’ procedural skills on spontaneous vaginal delivery. In addition, the feedback session is a crucial component that should be integrated into every SBL activity.