1,625
Views
1
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

Transitioning preclinical students into clerkships amidst curricular disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic

, , , , &
Article: 1996216 | Received 17 Aug 2021, Accepted 18 Oct 2021, Published online: 28 Oct 2021
 

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant disruptions to medical education. The patient care space was unavailable as a learning environment, which compounded the complexity of preparing students for clerkships with a traditional transition to clerkship (TTC) curriculum. We developed a multimodal, structured approach to re-introduce students to the clinical space prior to the start of clerkships. 105 second year medical students completed a 4-week clinical enhancement course. A modified Delphi method was used to select core topics, which were then anchored to key Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs). Students participated in 9 virtual problem-based cases, workshops and multiple supervised patient encounters. Students were surveyed before, during, and after the course; responses were compared with paired t-tests. 25.9% rated the course as excellent, 44.2% as very good, and 19.5% as good. Compared to baseline, self-perceived efficacy grew significantly (P < 0.05) across all EPAs. Improvements in key competencies were sustained when students were surveyed 2 weeks into their first clerkship. This was a well-received, novel course, focused on helping students transition back into the clinical space through a multimodal teaching approach. This framework may be used by other institutions seeking to restructure their TTC initiatives.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of the medical school leadership, faculty and administrative staff with their help in organizing the course. The course would have not been possible without all of those who volunteered to serve as mentors and facilitators.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementarymaterial

Supplementary material for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.