Medical students in their first consultation: A comparison between a simulated face-to-face and telehealth consultation to train medical consultation skills

OBJECTIVE: A simulated conversation between a physician and a family member, i.e., a medical conversation, was changed from a conventional face-to-face conversation (SS 2019) to a telehealth conversation (SS 2020) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The medical education conversation is part of the biochemistry seminar “From Genes to Proteins” which second semester human medicine students take. The objective of this study was to analyze to what extent the switch from face-to-face to telehealth conversations affected student satisfaction and motivation. METHODOLOGY: In the seminar, students study biochemical as well as competency-oriented content, such as how to talk to family members. In the summer semester of 2019, students were trained how to talk to their patients’ family members in a traditional conversation setting with the help of lay actors in a classroom format. In the summer semester of 2020, this conversation took place under comparable conditions, but in the form of an online telehealth conversation instead. Student satisfaction and motivation were surveyed by means of an evaluation questionnaire following the seminar in both semesters. RESULTS: Both conversation formats achieved a high level of satisfaction from students (school grade A-B). For some evaluation items, such as “realistic conversation simulation”, the face-to-face conversation was perceived as more satisfying (Md=5.0, IQR=1.0) than the telehealth conversation (Md=5.0, IQR=2.0). In addition, the face-to-face conversation resulted in higher subjective motivation from students (Md=5.0, IQR=1.0) than that of the telehealth conversation (Md=4.0, IQR=2.0). CONCLUSION: The high student satisfaction and acceptance of both didactic concepts leads to the conclusion that the simulated telehealth conversation is an adequate substitute for the simulation of a traditional face-to-face conversation with regard to the parameters that were studied.