Telemedicine in lockdown: The new normal? Teaching medical students in virtual clinics

Introduction During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, nonurgent benign gynaecology consultations moved to virtual clinics to adhere to social distancing guidelines. This reconfiguration poses potential barriers to undergraduate teaching in clinics. Methods Patients were recruited prospectively at a range of gynaecology clinics at SMH for short structured telephone interviews. Anonymised demographic details were collected from electronic healthcare records. An anonymous online survey was distributed to doctors of all training grades in gynaecology at St Mary's Hospital (SMH) via SurveyMonkey. Results were exported from SurveyMonkey. All data were analysed using Microsoft Excel. Results 107 patients and 37 doctors were surveyed. 87% of patients were happy for medical students to join virtual clinics. Of these, 85% were agreeable to being called ahead by a medical student. Patients who declined students mentioned that the sensitive nature of gynaecology complaints made them uncomfortable with this. Patients who declined to speak with medical students without the presence of a doctor mentioned the inconvenience of repetition and inability to verify students' identity. Only 22% of doctors were willing to facilitate medical student participation. One doctor mentioned the logistical and technical difficulties with facilitating students in virtual clinics. Conclusions Medical student participation in virtual clinics is an important element of their training as face to face opportunities are limited. Most patients are willing for medical students to attend virtual appointments, but most doctors are hesitant to facilitate this. Urgent further research is required to determine the barriers to facilitating medical student participation to overcome these.