Simulation Strategies for Teaching the Virtual Physical Exam: A Mixed-Methods Comparative Analysis

Although telemedicine is becoming a regular part of clinical care, few health professional training programs teach the best practices for performing a virtual physical exam (VPE). The monograph describes how two colleges collaborated to develop VPE workshops for medical and physician assistant students. The workshops include simulations with standardised patients. In one format, one student interviews one patient at a time. This created substantial time and resource constraints. We piloted a second format wherein ten students would collaborate on the VPE. We used a mixed-methods survey to compare student perceptions of value and satisfaction between the two models. When asked if the teaching methods were effective, students scored two individual simulations, 4.4 and 4.2, on a 5-point scale and rated the group simulation 4.3. Our data suggests that students valued both instructional approaches. Instead, learning objectives, clinical content, and resource constraints should guide instructors' simulation design.