Abstract
Due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, medical schools have paused traditional clerkships, eliminating direct patient encounters from medical students’ education for the immediate future. Telemedicine offers opportunities in a variety of specialties that can augment student education during this time. The projected growth of telemedicine necessitates that students learn new skills to be effective providers. In this viewpoint, we delineate specific telehealth opportunities that teach core competencies for patient care, while also teaching telemedicine-specific skills. Schools can further augment student education through a variety of telemedicine initiatives across multiple medical fields. The explosion of telemedicine programs due to the pandemic can be a catalyst for schools to integrate telemedicine into their current curricula. The depth and variety of telemedicine opportunities allow schools to continue providing high-quality medical education while maintaining social distancing policies.
Highlights
On March 23, 2020, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) issued guidance on medical student involvement during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, recommending that medical students not participate in direct patient care, unless there is a critical workforce need, and only on a voluntary basis [1]
While direct patient care has been appropriately limited at most schools, the lessons learned from these critical patient interactions cannot be fully replaced by readings, lectures, case studies, or online modules
Integration of telemedicine into undergraduate medical education allows for all future physicians to have access to this type of training
Summary
With the imminent growth of telemedicine, teaching providers this unique skillset is essential for the success of future telemedicine programs. Medical students could research topics inspired by patient cases (EPA 7) and discuss the impacts of telemedicine on health care (EPA 13) These examples show how the e-visit can provide in-depth, high-quality education. Screen-sharing technologies could allow students to become involved in review of slides and imaging remotely (EPAs 2 and 3) Unique experiences such as opportunities to triage urgent cases may exist for hospitals that have telestroke [18] or teletrauma teams (EPA 10) [19,20], or to participate in virtual interdisciplinary rounds (EPA 9) [17]. The vast array of telemedicine initiatives can be utilized to augment traditional clerkships, providing students with broader access to diverse learning opportunities
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