摘要：COVID-19 pandemic required community shutdowns that had profound implications on medical education when pre-clerkship instruction shifted to a web-based format [1,2]. Virtual learning lacks personal contact and abrogates observational learning that comes from ‘the hidden curriculum (HC)’[3]. A great deal of what is learned in medical school takes place not within formal course offerings but within medicine’s HC [4]. HC is defined as a set of influences that function at the organizational cultural level to impact learning. Although not formally stated, it is conveyed through role modeling, social interactions, and unintentional observations, i.e., of the words said or omitted, jokes told, silences observed by the learner [5,6]. HC can enhance learning components like leadership, communication, and management skills; collaboration with the wider community; capacity and cultures; and student activities [7]. Students recognize that many components required during the clinical years that enhance the breadth and depth of medical education are acquired through the HC [6]. Unlike the explicit declared curriculum, HC is implicit and includes the daily socialization process, where norms and values are transmitted during delivery of the curriculum [3,8,9]. This happens due to intentional and unintentional social interactions among the learners and other stakeholders of the learning community and influence learner’s development [7]. Many of these social interactions were blunted when the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the curriculum delivery approach move to virtual platforms [1,2,10], redefining, and somewhat nullifying the HC learning.
