ISPRM Webinar Series – a beginning of live international online education platform

COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the lives of people around the world. It has been a big challenge to medical community both in terms of taking care of patients and protecting themselves. Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) specialty has been facing unique challenges in the current situation.

To connect the professionals related to rehabilitation medicine around the world, share experiences among each other and create teaching-learning activities, ISPRM started an online platform – ISPRM Webinar Series. It is a weekly webinar session currently organized to cover various topics related to COVID-19 and PRM. The ISPRM Education committee and World Youth Forum work hand in hand under the guidance of ISPRM President’s Cabinet. Dr. Rochelle Dy, Chair of Education Committee of ISPRM has been overseeing all the webinar activities. Speakers and expert panelists from various part of the globe have been invited to share their expertise and experience.  The webinars have also provided the opportunity for members of the ISPRM World Youth Forum to gain international exposure by serving as moderators of the sessions.

The following webinar sessions have been successfully conducted in May:

The live session webinars are conducted using the Bigmarker platform, a paid professional webinar service.

The average number of unique registrants and participants in the live broadcasted webinar sessions was 946 and 566 respectively. The live session of webinar has been successful to reach to the audience of over 90 countries so far. The live webinar sessions have been attended by various professionals and in-training individuals working in the field of rehabilitation medicine around the world

(see pie-chart showing proportion of registrants for our 3rd webinar session):

Each lecture session is followed by a Question & Answer session. During the live session, the chat feature of the webinar was found to be an effective way of communication between audience and their interaction with the speakers/panelists. The polls feature of the platform is helping the organizer to acquire important data on the views of audience regarding the COVID-19 and the webinar. The recorded sessions are available online at https://www.isprm.org/isprm-webinars along with related handouts and reference materials.

The webinar sessions have been continuously improved with the help of feedback received from the users after each webinar session. ISPRM plans to continue the webinar series weekly during the COVID-19 crisis. Discussions have been started to continue the webinar sessions even after COVID-19 crisis as a monthly lecture specially focused for the PRM residents around the world. Organizing team wants to sincerely thank the ISPRM members and audiences, speakers and panelists, ISPRM leadership and administration, Jessyca Idi, to make this ISPRM Webinar Series a grand success.

– Manoj Poudel, President – ISPRM World Youth Forum and Rochelle Dy, Chair – ISPRM Education Committee