The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the globe in the past year, demanding shifts in all aspects of life including health profession education. The New York City area was the first major United States epicenter and is home to four genetic counseling graduate programs. We set out to explore the multifaceted programmatic changes required from the four institutions in an early pandemic epicenter, providing the longest time horizon available for assessing the implications of this restructuring on graduate education in the profession. Using practitioner-based enquiry, our iterative reflections identified three phases of COVID-19 response within our programs from March through December 2020. The spring months were marked by significant upheaval and reactivity, with a focus on stabilizing our programs in an unstable environment that included a significant medical response required in our area. By summer, we were reinvesting time and energy into our programs and prioritizing best practices in online learning. Relative predictability returned in the fall with noticeable improvements in flexibility and proactive problem-solving within our new environment. We have begun to identify changes in both curricula and operations that are likely to become more permanent. Telehealth fieldwork, remote supervision, simulated cases with standardized clients, and virtual recruitment and admission events are some key examples. We explored early outcome measures, such as enrollment, retention, course evaluations, and student academic and fieldwork progress, all indicating little change from prior to the pandemic to date. Overall, we found our programs, and genetic counseling graduate education more broadly, to be much more resilient and flexible than we would ever have realized. The COVID-19 pandemic has awakened in us a desire to move ahead with reduced barriers to educational innovation.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 大流行期间纽约市遗传咨询研究生教育的演变：风暴之眼

过去一年，COVID-19 大流行席卷全球，要求包括卫生职业教育在内的生活方方面面发生转变。纽约市地区是美国第一个主要的震中，是四个遗传咨询研究生项目的所在地。我们着手探索在大流行早期震中的四所机构所需的多方面计划变革，为评估这种重组对专业研究生教育的影响提供了最长的时间范围。通过基于从业者的调查，我们的反复思考确定了从 2020 年 3 月到 2020 年 12 月我们计划中 COVID-19 响应的三个阶段。重点是在不稳定的环境中稳定我们的项目，其中包括我们地区所需的重大医疗响应。到了夏天，我们将时间和精力重新投入到我们的计划中，并优先考虑在线学习的最佳实践。在我们的新环境中，随着灵活性和主动解决问题的显着改善，相对可预测性在秋季恢复。我们已经开始确定课程和运营方面的变化，这些变化可能会变得更加持久。远程医疗实地考察、远程监督、标准化客户模拟案例以及虚拟招聘和录取活动是一些关键示例。我们探索了早期结果衡量标准，例如入学率、保留率、课程评估以及学生的学业和实地考察进展，所有这些都表明与大流行之前相比几乎没有变化。总的来说，我们发现我们的项目和更广泛的遗传咨询研究生教育比我们想象的更有弹性和灵活性。COVID-19 大流行唤醒了我们在减少教育创新障碍的情况下继续前进的愿望。