Telehealth: ‘travelling’ to US electives

Following elective cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine electives became a promising alternative for medical students to gain clinical experience. In fact, even prior to the pandemic, medical students have sought out telemedicine electives and online learning to gain or supplement clinical experience. One study found that when incorporating simulation-based, flipped classroom-style teaching into a surgical clerkship, students responded with positive reviews. Some 90% of students rated the curriculum as “excellent” or “outstanding”, while 85% were confident that the same curriculum could be applied to other clerkships. Studies have also found telemedicine opportunities to be beneficial in that they provide students with the knowledge and skills to help populations with less access to quality care. Telemedicine can be an efficient, low-cost, and innovative method of healthcare teaching in remote locations. Even surgical training residencies were able to successfully implement telemedicine electives by including online teaching and testing, teleconferencing, telemedicine clinics, procedural simulation, and pre-recorded surgical videos. This briefing discusses my personal experience as a medical student with two telemedicine electives during the COVID-19 pandemic.