Abstract
Clinical teaching is a key component in professional training and assessment to the Medicine Programme (MBChB) and the training of future doctors. Given the current situation of Covid-19 outbreak in China and the emergency response of the Hospital Authority, clinical teaching has been affected and there is suspension of clinical teaching territory wide. An online approach can be easily adopted in for undergraduate teaching and tutorials, however clinical teaching requires innovation in pedagogy. There is limited evidence and models of online teaching methods and pedagogy as well as educational management decisions pertinent to when the ‘live’ patient may not be available in the pandemic era. The proposal aims to:
• Support clinical teachers in online teaching in zoom and other modalitites
• Support online clinical learning for students
• Support surrogate training and models in place of clinical patients
• Development of innovative online clinical pedagogies
• Development of innovative online clinical assessment
• Evaluation of online clinical teaching and assessment
• Development of pandemic preparedness planning in clinical teaching This project will allow clinical teaching to continue even though face to face patient clinical teaching is disrupted.
This is essential as Hong Kong has faced SARS and other pandemics and require support in online development of clinical teaching.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
To support clinical teachers and students in online clinical teaching and learning and assessment
- Including surrogate training and models and development of innovative clinical pedagogies and assessment and pandemic preparedness planning in clinical teaching
Activities, process and outcomes
The project included staff and student educational and discussion forums for online learning, technical responsive team, and evaluation survey of staff and students online learning. Process indicators and outcomes include pandemic planning discussions, online clinical teaching activites and online sessions/ assessments with surrogate patients and models, evaluation report and pandemic preparedness plan for clinical teaching.
Deliverables and evaluation
Evaluation survey of clinical students and teachers to assess the medical education response to COVID-19 in terms of communication, online learning, infection control, and assessments showed satisfactory response, identified effective simulation, case and surrogate online teaching practices although cannot fully replace clinical teaching in context.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
Lead author: Wong C et al. Continuing medical education during pandemic waves of COVID-19: Consensus from medical faculties in Asia, Australia and Europe [version 1]. MedEdPublish 2021, 10:64.
Dissemination through faculty meetings and discussions through subsequent waves of pandemic in planning curriculum and assessments.
Dissemination in 3 international medical education meetings as invited speaker, in 2 meetings with CUHK leading an international webinar in May 2020 with 194 participants from 25 countries.
Impact on teaching and learning
CU clinical medicine now provides a responsive and adaptive online curriculum and includes communication, infection control, online education and simulation, and clinical assessment contingencies.
