“Who’s watching?”: Exploring patients’ acceptance of having their consultations livestreamed for educational purposes

Abstract

Shortages of clinical placements are an ever-increasing global challenge. Livestreaming clinical experiences to remotely-located learners shows promise in addressing this challenge. However, little is known about the acceptability of livestreamed clinical experiences for patients. Understanding patient views is critical to determine feasibility of this method of delivering clinical experience. This study reports on the experiences of 11 patients who participated in a livestreamed clinical experience in general practices in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Up to five remotely-located medical students participated in each consultation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that a livestreamed clinical experience did not impact patients’ experience of their consultation, including willingness to withdraw from the consultation. Smartglasses worn by clinicians did not impede patient-clinician interaction, likely because they did not obstruct eye contact. Patient views varied as to whether or not they preferred to see students on the computer screen during the consultation, raising potential tensions between student learning needs and patient preference. Most patients had no preference as to whether students participated remotely or in person. These findings show promise in terms of patient acceptability but further research evaluating patient perspectives in greater numbers and in other clinical contexts is important.

Keywords:

• Patient perspectives
• livestreamed clinical experiences

Ethics statement

NHS ethical approval was sought to gain patient perspectives in general practice sites (IRAS reference: 300212).

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in this study, including patients, students and clinical educators.

Disclosure statement

Jane Kirby reports financial support was provided by NHS England and notes that she is the Chief Investigator of the Virtual Clinical Experiences project. Kelvin Gomez notes that he is the Principal Investigator of the Virtual Clinical Experiences project. The University of Leeds has a financial interest in the Global Health Education Group, established subsequent to the initiation of the research project. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors, not necessarily those of NHS England or the Global Health Education Group.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NHS England (previously Health Education England).

Notes on contributors

Kelvin Gomez

Kelvin Gomez, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, investigates the design, development and evaluation of novel technologies for teaching and learning in medical education.

Helen L. Edwards

Helen L. Edwards, GP, Clinical Associate Professor in Medical Education and Head of Student Education in Primary Care, investigates how technology can support teaching and learning.

Jane Kirby

Jane Kirby, GP and Clinical Teaching Fellow, investigates novel approaches to clinical teaching.