Telehealth and Medical Student Education in the Time of COVID-19-and Beyond.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to limit medical students’ full reintegration into clinical learning environments, thus exacerbating an ongoing challenge in identifying a robust number of clinical educational activities at excellent clinical sites for all students. Because medical students across the United States were removed from direct patient care activities in mid-March 2020 due to COVID-19, medical centers have prioritized and implemented changes to the process of patient care. As some barriers are being lifted in the face of a highly contagious and deadly infection, the use of telehealth (delivery of health services remotely via telephone, video, and secure messaging), although not new, is rapidly expanding into all aspects of patient care. Health care providers have been encouraged to conduct many interactions at a physical distance. Telehealth largely replaced face-to-face visits for nonemergency care in an attempt to slow viral transmission while enabling physicians to continue to deliver patient education, manage acute and chronic illness, and nurture caring doctor–patient relationships. Health care providers, many of whom were initially reluctant to embrace telehealth technology and logistics, are becoming nimbler and more aware of the many positive aspects of telehealth. The authors suggest that integrating medical students into telehealth activities would help maintain and improve patients’ health, extend the capabilities of health care teams and systems during and after the pandemic, and increase medical students’ opportunities for experiential learning and professional identity formation. The authors expand on these 3 goals, suggest several concrete student telehealth activities, propose a curricular strategy, and outline opportunities to overcome key barriers to full alignment of telehealth and undergraduate medical education.