Teachers and students opinions about a comprehensive online program in medicine during COVID-19 lockdown

Introduction: The COVID-19 crisis led to the closure of the country's universities in March 2020, with total interruption of face-to-face activity To dealt with last 2019/20 semester in lockdown, our Faculty of Medicine implemented a joint training program totally online with a «self-regulatory» teaching approach This study presents the opinions of teachers and students Methods: The educational characteristics of the online Program for COVID-19 (POLAC), for 1st and 2nd year of medicine, structuring and organization of the intervention and academic results, have been described in other work This study through online surveys explores the opinions of teachers and students Two researchers coded the open-ended responses obtained thematically and independently, classifying them into categories Results: The 8 teachers involved and a variable number of student by subject responded, receiving 234 questionnaires (17%) The students highlight as positive the optimization of the teaching resources used, the usefulness of the online tools, especially self-assessments and the doubts management system The development of practical sessions and lack of face-to-face learning are highlighted as negative aspects of the Program Dedication of teachers received positive and negative remarks Teachers highlight the empowerment of the student's autonomy and the usefulness of online tools but also the additional need to be presence Conclusion: Globally, the positive and negative comments are in line with the strengths and weaknesses of both online teaching and «self-regulatory» teaching approaches More robust design studies are needed to verify the true scope of these results © 2021 Elsevier Espana, S L U