<div>KEY POINTS</div><ul><li>SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19) is a major challenge for healthcare
systems and physicians and may impact young otolaryngologists’
training and clinical practice.</li><li>The COVID-19 outbreak negatively influenced otolaryngologists’
clinical activity and training in Italy.</li><li>Interventions to evaluate and address residents’ training gaps are
needed.</li><li>Online lectures represent a promising strategy to cope with the
current situation while laying the foundations of a structured
high-quality national teaching curriculum.</li><li>A lack of training on the use of personal protective equipment, oxygen
ventilation systems and COVID-19 therapies has been highlighted.</li></ul><div>INTRODUCTION</div><div>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
postponed<sup>1</sup> with a major shift of resources towards
pandemic management, profoundly affecting the training of
Otorhinolaryngology (ENT) residents<sup>2</sup>. 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.</div><div>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.</div><div>MATERIALS AND METHODS</div>