By Marianne de Visser, Susanna Zuurbier, Rosina Preis
As a Christmas Special to EAN’s Resident and Research Fellow Section members, we hosted a series of three Master Classes in the course of December 2020 for free.
The COVID-19 pandemic appeared to be a great impetus to provide online learning materials to our members and to build a repertoire of e-Learning resources for a consistent source of neurological knowledge. The EAN Master Classes are the first of many future initiatives to facilitate our members in pursuing continuing education.
The overall learning objective was to improve knowledge on a specific topic for Residents in Neurology by obtaining a deeper understanding of a specific topic.
The Master Classes were held by European experts in neurology who had presented a lecture on a specific topic for registered and selected (first come-first serve) RRFS members.
Participants who had been accepted to the Master Classes were recommended to watch the corresponding lecture of the Virtual EAN Congress of 2020. Prior to the Master Class, they received further resources (e.g. articles, documents, forms, etc.) from the speakers to prepare.
During the Master Class, the experts shortly introduced the topic and then discussed the content and additional materials with the participants. There were possibilities to assess the knowledge of the participants by raising questions, or using tools such as quizzes and polls.
The first Master Class, held by Professor Jon Stone on December 7th, was a great success. The Master Class was based on his lecture entitled “How to recognize an acute functional movement disorder?”. As a second lecture, Professor Angelo Antonini addressed “Toxin induced hyerkinesias”. Finally, Professor Elena Lebedeva held the third Master Class on “Headache on cerebrovascular disorders”. The European Academy of Neurology extends its gratitude to the Professors, who have provided their expertise and time for the Master Classes.
Interest in the first EAN Virtual Master Classes was very high and all slots were reserved after just 1 hour of registration. We are happy that the Master Classes were met with great enthusiasm. The participants were asked to provide feedback on the Master Class which will allow for further improvement.
