Medical Schools Adapt to Absentee Students in Lecture Halls.

Many medical students are opting to watch recorded lectures on their own time instead of attending in-person classes during the first two years of medical school, a trend that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to discussions about how to incorporate virtual learning while still adequately training future doctors for patient care. One proposed solution is to employ the "flipped classroom" model, where students learn most of the classroom-type material on their own before in-person time, which would allow for more hands-on learning opportunities. However, there are concerns about the impact of virtual learning on student-teacher relationships and the personal nature of medicine. Medical education is at an inflection point, and decisions about virtual learning are intertwined with questions about the role of medical science coursework, the integration of outside resources, and the accessibility of educational reforms.