Compassion becomes real when we recognise our own humanity¹

Volume 32:1: 2021, despite continuing turbulent Covid-19 times, offers the opportunity to contemplate primary care medical education post the pandemic. What have we learnt as we move into an inevitably new era? Volume 31 has seen a significant, welcome rise in submissions and in publication downloads. Great interest has been shown in articles covering new ways of implementing online courses and remote supervision. We have experienced a paradigm shift in education delivery. But, what to retain of the old era? What are we at risk of losing?

In this issue, Johnson and Hart highlight the importance of understanding the lived experience of the Covid-19 world. Nigel Hart’s heart breaking description of his interaction, dressed in full personal protective equipment (PPE), with a dying woman in a nursing home is extraordinarily moving. His professional transgression as he automatically ‘lift(ed) her hand without conscious intent … in order to connect’ vividly portrays the ‘brutal paradigm shift’ we have taken to survive the pandemic. He recognises his own humanity. Real compassion beautifully encapsulated by the authors in existentialist theory. Iona Heath’s equally powerful reflection on ‘love in the time of coronavirus’ offers other examples[2]. ‘Even in the face of death, there is nothing more important than love[2].’

As these articles highlight, we need to explore in an existentialist way how the pandemic has affected us personally as individuals. The lived experience of thinking, feeling, and acting as a human being is crucial. If we first recognise and value our own humanity, then what we must retain as educators becomes clear. This generates the compassion to understand the dread and insecurity the virus has generated in all around us; patients, students, and colleagues.

The world view the WONCA Working Party on Education (WWPE) has taken in ‘Reimagining primary care medical education in the time of Covid-19’, published in this issue, confirms that fear, uncertainty – yes even brutality – is an experience shared across the globe. Educators in all WONCA regions have discovered that the well-being of students experiencing the personal losses and self-doubt engendered by the virus and curriculum change is at significant risk. Educators too are under enormous pressure as they struggle to rapidly transform training. The need for support is overwhelming. This is accompanied by worrying widening inequities in education resultant on differentials in access to online delivery. There is an ever increasing need to bring social accountability into the driving seat of medical education.

This journal continues to explore and foster the unique opportunities offered in primary care education. With contributions in this issue from over ten countries, it is clear that our community of practice can provide the relative safety and sense of belonging trainees need to flourish and learn. As health delivery inevitable changes in the wake of the pandemic, primary care is well placed to pick up the pieces as we emerge from these difficult times. Self-awareness of our own vulnerability, so well portrayed by Johnston and Hart, provides an important first step to build new ways of educating. Thus, compassion will remain real, and not be left behind, as we enter the world of ever innovative technologies and artificial intelligence.

As 2021 takes us gradually beyond the pandemic, let’s reflect on, and value, our own narratives, along with those of patients, colleagues and students, to build educational research and move through the lived experience of Covid-19 into a bright new future.