The Council of Portuguese Medical Schools (CEMP), meeting today, 9th March, through videoconference, began by expressing total solidarity with ICBAS and Escola Médica do Minho, which closed their facilities during the past weekend due to the current crisis related to Covid-19.
In the context of the evolution of the situation in Portugal and attentive to an increasing need for preventive measures towards Covid-19, in particular, considering the great mobility of students and teachers in a hospital environment, and without prejudice to guaranteeing the autonomy of each School in In relation to its specific reality, CEMP decided to issue the following recommendations:
- Suspend all classroom activities in schools and associated hospitals and health centers.
- Close the spaces normally used by students (libraries, study rooms, others).
- Implement distance learning processes, minimizing potential pedagogical impacts.
- Recommend a change of legislation that allows, in academic tests and competitions in which it is not possible to postpone the meetings already scheduled, participation by videoconference.
- To recommend that measures be taken in the research areas in order to be able to transition to minimal laboratory activities, also promoting, whenever possible, less face-to-face activity at the facilities.
The aforementioned measures will be maintained for a period of at least two weeks, counting from the present date, being subject to periodic evaluation according to the evolution of the situation in Portugal.
The President of CEMP
Prof. Doctor Fausto J. Pinto
