KEY POINTS
INTRODUCTION
Since February 21, 2020 Italy has been witnessing a massive COVID-19 outbreak and Italian hospitals have been rapidly overcrowded with COVID-19 patients. In keeping with current recommendations of the Italian Ministry of Health, all non-urgent surgeries have been postponed1 with a major shift of resources towards pandemic management, profoundly affecting the training of Otorhinolaryngology (ENT) residents2. Currently, residency programs face the challenge of establishing the effects of the disruption of training on procedural skills and competency development in order to effectively address training gaps. Moreover, since current information indicates that roughly 10% of Italian cases have been among health-care workers, the impact of the disease on trainees deserves to be evaluated.
A nationwide survey has therefore been conducted to assess the impact of COVID-19 on ENT residency programs and gain information that could be employed to implement compensative strategies to maintain high-quality standards of training.
MATERIALS AND METHODS