Family Medicine Telehealth Clinic With Medical Students

Abstract

COVID-19 has altered clinical clerkships for medical students, providing an opportunity for telehealth with medical students to take center stage in the age of technology. This research brief demonstrates why and how to incorporate medical students into telehealth. For the purposes of clinical students, telehealth is a better educational alternative to in-person patient care than online modules. We performed a successful outpatient family medicine telehealth pilot program at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) that is currently being scaled up to other clerkships. This pilot was very limited in scope, but serves as a scalable model for future telehealth programs and curricula incorporating medical students.

A scoping review on adaptations of clinical education for medical students during COVID-19

“…Cain et al [ 19 ] reported family medicine clerkship students reviewing and documenting on EMR charts later reviewed by the attending. Similar pilot programs were reported by family medicine telehealth clinics at the Medical University of South Carolina [ 21 ]. A unique program led by Stanford University’s students, called Cardinal Free Clinics, opened immediately after the onset of the pandemic, and changed to a telehealth clinic model when in-person patient clinics were forced to close due to university COVID-19 policies [ 22 ].…”

“…Adding to previous reviews, we found reports using telemedicine to overcome the challenges in clinical education amidst the pandemic disruption ( Table 2 ). 17 papers [ 8 , 9 , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] ] described the use of telemedicine as an educational tool mostly for clerkship rotations but three also included pre-clinical year students. Whilst telemedicine was mainly implemented in university hospitals, six programs were also executed in the community.…”

“…Practice guidelines [ 11 , 12 , 20 , 22 ] and training for faculty and students were provided [ 10 , 14 , 16 , 18 , 20 , 22 , 24 ] prior to encountering patients over the telehealth platform. In-advance informed consent from the patients were obtained and screening took place to ensure patients had the appropriate virtual interfaces [ 18 , 19 , 21 ].…”

“… 2.4,5,7 Comm FM US Carson et al [ 20 ] b Medical students staffed the hotline and assisted the underserved rural populations of northern Nevada; results showed significant improvements in students’ clinical skills including screening patients for COVID19, and triaging patients. 1,2,3,4,8,9 Comm FM US Peterseim and Watson [ 21 ] Telehealth clinic shadowing family medicine attending or student led e-consultation taking history and describing physical exam manoeuvres to patient to perform on themselves. 4,6,8,9 Comm FM US Ruiz Colon et al [ 22 ] Students performed history taking, delivery of patient education and counselling after receiving basic telehealth training.…”

“…Telemedicine engaged students and patients in diverse clinical settings providing a platform to teach wide range of clinical skills including clinical reasoning, professionalism, and communication skills during a pandemic [ 14 , 19 ] with high satisfaction levels [ 14 , 33 ]. The publications reporting clinical teaching via telemedicine during the COVID-19 could serve as a scalable model for future educational programs to be incorporated into the medical student curricula [ 21 ] and expanded into outreach programs, especially in underserved rural communities [ 19 ].…”