Virtually prepared! Student-led online clinical assessment

ABSTRACT

The transition of medical education from a face-to-face to virtual setting due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions has been challenging. While both students and educators have now somewhat settled into new teaching methods, from Zoom™ lectures to online tutorials, the adaption of clinical skills teaching to the virtual setting has lagged behind. As a result, many students have been left feeling anxious and concerned about practicing practical and communication skills that are central to being a competent and safe doctor. In light of this, medical students at the Queen’s University Belfast General Practice (GP) Society organised a series of virtual, mock Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) for students in Years 2–5 conducted via Zoom™. Medical students and doctors acted as examiners and simulated patients (SPs) with ‘breakout rooms’ being used to simulate distinct OSCE stations. This collaborative project was well received by participants and doctors alike, who found the virtual OSCEs improved their confidence in performing key clinical skills and virtual consultations. As medical students ourselves, we gained early career exposure to designing and delivering assessments and developed transferable skills, relevant both to medicine and teaching. Lastly, the peer-led approach disrupted the traditional hierarchy in medical education. Students are a key, and often overlooked, resource to overcoming challenges in medical education and educators should encourage students to become involved in medical education at an early stage in their careers.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical education
• medical assessment
• peer education
• OSCEs
• COVID-19
• virtual consultation

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr Kathy Cullen and the staff at the Centre for Medical Education at Queen’s University, Belfast for supporting and guiding us throughout the project. We would also like to thank all the students and doctors who volunteered as part of this project.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

No ethical approval was required for this project. During data collection, participants specifically asked for their consent for their feedback to be used in research and publication outputs. There was no potential harm to participants, anonymity of participants is guaranteed and informed consent of participants was obtained for publication.

Additional information

Funding

This project did not require any funding and was not associated with any grant-awarding bodies.