Evaluation of an experiential clinical learning option during pandemic teaching suspensions

BACKGROUND: As students’ direct patient contact was suspended because of COVID-19-related restrictions, we revised our clinical addiction medicine curriculum for students to learn about the different multidisciplinary clinical models delivered at our hospital and in community settings. Our aim was to provide an overview of clinical modalities and familiarize learners with clinician and patient experiential perspectives. METHODS: We implemented a multi-pronged approach, offering an overview of clinical care programs through remote panels involving care providers at the clinics where students had previously been scheduled for in-person rotations. This included inpatient and office-based addiction services, addiction treatment program for adolescents and young adults, integrated addiction care and HIV primary care clinic, and opioid use urgent care clinic. Beyond having them join outpatient telehealth clinic visits, students also participated in an online panel involving patients in recovery to gain familiarity with their care perspectives; and joined a panel with recovery coaches to get further insights into patient challenges in clinical settings. Students further participated in remote opioid treatment trainings and observed clinical rounds of inpatient addiction consults and adolescent clinic team meetings. RESULTS: With this revised curriculum, students learned about the variety of clinical modalities at the height of our hospital’s COVID-19 pandemic burden. The evaluation suggested that students appreciated the authenticity of accounts from patients and providers about their challenges and satisfaction related to clinical care. While in a remote learning setting, students overall wished for more personal interaction with patients and providers. They also noted a lack of group cohesion and connection that they felt would otherwise have been met in an in-person program. CONCLUSIONS: Remote learning allowed our program to connect trainees to the multidisciplinary field of addiction medicine despite the COVID-19 pandemic. In future program iterations, we will consider hybrid formats of in-person learning experiences with direct patient and faculty contact where possible, combined with online provider and patient panels possibly, in addition to virtual breakout formats to facilitate more personal student-patient and student-faculty interactions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-022-03530-4.