The Impact of Tele-Education on Family Medicine Clerkship Students' Learning Outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated rapid changes to medical education for student and patient protection. A dearth of published US studies examine resulting clinical education outcomes due to pandemic-induced curricula changes. We describe adaptations made to a family medicine clerkship to move it from traditional in-person delivery to virtual only, and then from virtual to hybrid; and compare educational outcomes of students across delivery types.

We stratified 386 medical students in their third year completing their 8-week family medicine clerkship by type of content delivery, including in person, virtual only, and hybrid instruction. We examined the impact of these changes on three clerkship learning outcomes: the midblock assessment score, the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) exam score, and the final numeric score (FNS).

In our sample, 164 (42.5%) received content in person, 36 (9.3%) received virtual only, and 186 (48.2%) received hybrid content. Students receiving virtual only (M=76.4, SD=9.1) had significantly higher midblock assessment scores (F=8.06, df=2, P=.0004) than students receiving hybrid (M=71.7, SD=8.8) and in-person training (M=74.5, SD=7.2). No significant differences existed in students' NBME exam scores or FNSs across delivery types.

Students receiving virtual-only or hybrid content performed at least as well on three clerkship-related educational outcomes as their pre-COVID peers participating in person. Further research is needed to understand how changes to medical education affected student learning and skill development.