Adapting Clinical Skills For Virtual Learning Through Telemedicine And Hybrid Simulated Patient Encounters (2020 Faculty Showcase)

Pre-COVID, medical students were frequently scheduled for in-person simulated encounters with standardized patients (SPs) to practice and assess their clinical and communication skills. Due to the shelter in place order, our clinical skills curriculum moved fully online in a matter of days. Furthermore, the USMLE decided to suspend the administration of the Step 2 Clinical Skills licensure exam until June 2021. With the exam suspended, the best measure of a student’s clinical competency is their performance on simulated patient exams, which had previously been utilized to gauge their performance on the Step 2 CS exam. By hosting formative telemedicine sessions, we provide valuable feedback to our students to refine their clinical skills while simultaneously becoming comfortable with this new normal. Through creativity and adaptation to constantly changing conditions, the Standardized Patient Program was able to successfully host a large-scale examination for 200 medical students in addition to many formative sessions. During our session, we will discuss how we incorporated remote simulated encounters into our curriculum, the progression to hybrid sessions, along with innovative approaches to maintain student engagement. Fostering communication and interpersonal skills among students using a facilitated debriefing model will also be discussed.