WCM-Q COVID-19 lecture series draws thousands of healthcare professionals
THO SANDS of healthcare professionals across atar have taken advantage of Weill Cornell Medicine atar’s (WCM- ) COVID-19 Live Webinar Series to learn of the latest advancements in coronavirus therapies, which will help them treat patients and save lives.
The hugely beneficial webinars were developed at the beginning of the March lockdown to meet the clinical needs of the local healthcare community, who were battling to treat patients afflicted by the virus. WCM- ’s Division of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) realised that to aid recovery, atar’s physicians and healthcare workers needed a trusted online source for the latest news about treatments and therapies.
With new facts, theories and discoveries about the virus being made daily across the world, it was vital for the health of patients in atar that doctors had the latest information.
When launched, healthcare workers across atar rushed to register for the accredited webinar series and thousands have since attended the online lectures.
Dr Salman Al erdi, assistant professor of neurology at WCM- , said: “As countries across the world entered lockdown in March, doctors fought to keep patients alive, researchers studied the novel coronavirus in laboratories and new information was discovered on an almost daily basis. In some instances, this information was vital for improved patient outcomes but because it was coming from discrete sources, it was a challenge for the medical community to avail itself of all the updates. So, the COVID-19 Live Webinar Series was conceived out of an idea to help keep atar’s medical community abreast of the rapidly changing clinical situation.”
So far there have been 33 pres
entations and a total of 36 speakers, including presentations by WCMfaculty, WCM- alumni, physicians from Sidra and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), and experts from foreign institutions. Each online lecture attracts more than a thousand virtual attendees and since the lectures began, 22,000 healthcare professionals have participated, the majority from atar but some from across the world.
Dr avaid Sheikh, dean of WCM, delivered a valuable lecture on the vital importance of maintaining close social relationships while keeping to physical distancing guidelines, and Dr Abdullatif Al Khal, deputy chief medical officer, director of the Department of Medical Education and senior consultant in infectious diseases at HMC, discussed the national response to 19 the pandemic.
The WCM- alumni who were invited to deliver a lecture were Drs Mahrukh Rizvi, Karima Becetti, Ghaith Abu- einah, Mohamed Elshazly and Salman Al erdi. They discussed subjects including therapeutics for COVID-19 pneumonia and the pandemic’s impact on cardiovas
cular diseases, to how COVID-19 affects the brain.
Other speakers and topics include Dr Randi R Diamond, assistant professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New ork, who discussed ‘Palliative Care and Covid-19, The Weill Cornell Medicine Experience’, and Dr Evelyn C Granieri, professor of medicine at Columbia niversity’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in the S, who spoke about the effects of COVID-19 on older patients.
A particularly high-profile recent lecturer was Dr Howard Markel, the George E Wantz distinguished professor of the history of medicine, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the niversity of Michigan and member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr Markel’s webinar looked at previous pandemics to affect the world in a lecture entitled ‘When Germs Travel: Coronavirus, and the Long History of Contagious Crises.’
The COVID-19 Live Webinar Series continues until the spring of 2021 and past presentations can be viewed online at CPD’s online archive.