The Impact of COVID-19 on Emergency Medicine Rotations

Introduction The impact of modifications in curriculum and clinical rotations made secondary to the COVID-19 pandemic on medical education has yet to be fully investigated. We observed differences in the types of patients seen by medical students that may have resulted from clinical disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We then evaluated what impact these disruptions had on the students’ clinical competency. Methods We obtained patient logbooks of third-year medical students (M3) and fourth-year sub-interns (M4) from the first three emergency medicine (EM) rotation blocks of the 2019-2020 (Y19) and 2020-2021 (Y20) academic years. We then reviewed and categorized the chief complaints seen and procedures in which they participated. A robust t-test was used to detect differences in chief complaints and procedures. Finally, we looked for objective differences using the chi-square test in clinical performance between the class of 2021 (Class21) and the class of 2022 (Class22), as assessed by performance on our institution’s clinical competency examination. Results Overall, students saw a 25.3% decrease in average number of patient encounters. Statistically significant decreased average numbers of infectious (-28.3%, p=0.013); musculoskeletal (-22.2%, p=0.018); gastrointestinal (GI) (-24.6%, p<0.01); genitourinary (GU) (-33.2%, p<0.01); head, eyes, ears, nose, throat (HEENT) (-31.1%, p<0.01); trauma (-33.0%, p<0.01); and respiratory (-45.4%, p<0.001) complaints were observed. Both M3s and M4s encountered significantly less GU (-25.6%, p=0.048; -41.7%, p=0.016) and trauma (-29.1%, p=0.023; -33.2%, p=0.032) complaints in Y20. M4s saw significantly less GI complaints (-42.6%, p<0.001) in Y20, whereas M3s encountered significantly less psychiatric and HEENT complaints (-30.3%, p=0.046; -34.6%, p=0.013). Both classes saw significantly less respiratory complaints in Y20 but more so for M4s (-65.3%, p<0.001) than for M3s (-27.9%, p=0.033). There were no significant differences in average number of procedures between years. We did not observe any differences in overall clinical performance between the two selected classes. While class of 2021 scored a significantly higher average on a case of fatigue (p=0.0004) and class of 2022 on a case of abdominal pain (p<0.0001), there were no significant differences in the primary chief complaints that would be attributed to COVID-19, such as dyspnea. Conclusion Modifications made to curricula and clinical rotations due to the COVID-19 pandemic led to students encountering less patients overall, with significant decreases in multiple chief complaint types compared to Y19 but no significant change in procedure numbers. Notably, there was no major impact seen on clinical competency providing a positive argument for considering innovative teaching and learning methods.