Traditional Teaching versus Online Teaching of Forensic Autopsy Case study – Grigore T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Iasi

Traditional medical education can be disrupted during periods of epidemic or pandemic, due primarily to the closure of universities and the restriction of social human contact in order to limit the pathogen transmission. COVID-19 pandemic thus determined universities and teachers to go towards alternative education methods, based on the use of the Internet, by teaching online courses and practical activities stipulated in the university curriculum. The alternative methods are based on the simulation as close as possible to the reality of the practical laboratories through the use of different software platforms that allow the attachment of study materials, live video conferences, the sharing of the screen with the transmission of power-point presentations, video materials, photos but also the evaluation of students by applying questionnaires with the possibility of real-time response. In this article, the authors analyze the advantages and disadvantages of teaching forensic autopsy through traditional methods versus teaching through alternative methods. The authors particularize the problems approached by analyzing the new online method of teaching the forensic autopsy to the students of the Grigore T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Iasi, which allows the continuity of the teaching activity, avoiding the direct human contact in order to encourage the students to maintain isolation according to the plan of the current state of emergency and, at the same time, without creating important dysfunctions in the structure of the academic year and of the university curriculum.