Teaching medical students in general practice when conducting remote consults: a qualitative study

This study aimed to explore the experience of New Zealand general practitioners undertaking clinical teaching with medical students when telehealth consulting.METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with general practitioners who had taught medical students whilst consulting remotely. General inductive thematic analysis of transcribed interviews.RESULTS: Six female and four male participants aged 40 to over 65 years. Participants often focused on general practicalities of telehealth consultations and effects on the patient-doctor relationship, and needed direction to consider remote consultations with students, which added to the interactions. Four themes were identified: changes needed in teaching delivery format; direct comparison with face-to-face; challenges and advantages to remote teaching, each with subthemes.DISCUSSION: Clinicians needed to determine practical logistics and develop skills for both remote consulting and teaching. New format and structures of consultations needed planning. Differences from face-to-face teaching included scene-setting for the consultation and supervision factors. Telehealth teaching conferred new opportunities for learning but also challenges (e.g. consent, cues, uncertainty). Remote consultations are likely to remain a significant mode for doctor-patient interactions. Preliminary guidelines for teaching and learning using telehealth need to be developed and embedded into medical programmes and then evaluated.PMID:37621057 | DOI:10.1080/1473...
Source: Education for Primary Care - Category: Primary Care Authors: Source Type: research