changing preferences for scientific meetings platform among doctors during the covid-19 pandemic: a questionnaire-based survey

Background: the world health organization declared the outbreak of the covid‑19 as a global pandemic in early 2020. lockdown was declared by the indian government across the country. no recommendations were laid down for academic scientific meetings. despite precautions, there is a high risk of infections in the physical meetings. therefore, the scientific community resorted to virtual meetings. objectives: this study was done to determine the doctor's preferred platform for scientific meetings during the covid-19 pandemic. methods: we conducted this cross-sectional survey among doctors using google forms. it consisted of a questionnaire consisting of 17 validated questions related to the preference of scientific meetings. results: we had 314 responses from doctors. the virtual meeting was preferred by 154 (49%) doctors during the covid-19 pandemic. convenience (103, 44.2%) was the most important reason for preferring virtual meetings. we did not find a statistical association in preference for the type of meeting with age, gender, and seniority during the pandemic. however, a significantly higher number of doctors practicing super-specialty (p = 0.005) and private practitioners (p = 0.027) preferred virtual meetings. all age groups preferred physical meetings in the future, but it was preferred to large extent by doctors aged more than 50 years (p = 0.059) with broad specialty (p = 0.005) and medical college doctors (p = 0.002). conclusions: most doctors preferred virtual meetings during the covid-19 pandemic. the super-specialist and private practitioners preferred virtual meetings during the pandemic and even in the future. hence, the virtual platform should stay along with physical scientific meetings.