Telehealth in Family Medicine Clerkships After Return of In-Person Care: A CERA Study

The COVID-19 pandemic encouraged widespread implementation of telemedicine. With the increased normalization of telemedicine in clinical practice, the authors sought to characterize telemedicine training during family medicine clerkships after the return to in-person care.

Data were collected as part of the 2023 Council of Academic Family Medicine's Educational Research Alliance (CERA) survey of family medicine clerkship directors (CDs). Along with baseline demographics about the clerkship and themselves, CDs answered which Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) telehealth competencies were taught during family medicine clerkships and indicated challenges related to involving medical students in telemedicine visits.

More than half of the responding family medicine clerkships (57.3%) did not teach any of the AAMC telehealth core competencies and only 4.3% taught all six competencies. The three most commonly taught competencies during the clerkship included communication via telehealth (32.2%), patient safety and appropriate use of telehealth (27.1%), and technology for telehealth (17.7%). Most family medicine clerkships (68.0%) identified at least one challenge of the three possible perceived challenges with "limited site resources" as the most reported barrier. There was no significant difference in telemedicine training from CD based on type of medical school (P=.73), gender (P=.82), being a CD for 5 years or less (P=.41), or self-identification as an underrepresented minority in medicine (P=.19).

Of those CDs who responded, many still do not teach the AAMC telehealth core competencies within their family medicine clerkship. The majority reported limited site resources as a barrier to telehealth education.