Assessing Telemedicine Coverage in the Medical School Curriculum

Andres L. Rodriguez, Department of Humanities, Health and Society, Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Miami, FL; Suzanne Minor, Office of Medical Education, Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Miami, FL

Background

The coronavirus pandemic forced medical schools to remove students from clinical rotations and transition to remote learning. Once students returned to their clinical rotations, many patients were seen via telemedicine platforms. Curricular leaders were forced to grapple with, embrace, and champion telehealth out of necessity. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our institution, like many, had not prioritized telemedicine as a vital education topic and was without a comprehensive telemedicine curriculum. Our institutional curricular leadership tasked us with assessing the current state of telemedicine within our curriculum at the Florida International University (FIU) Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (HWCOM). The purpose of this curricular exploration was to help prepare our students for the large role telemedicine will likely play in their future careers.^1,2

Intervention

We employed a systematic approach: (1) assess where and how telemedicine was covered in the current curriculum; (2) identify standards for telemedicine education objectives to create an aspirational telemedicine curriculum; (3) identify any gaps in the current curriculum and our aspirational curriculum; and (4) report this information to the curricular leadership.

In order to assess where and how telemedicine was being covered in the curriculum, we first asked the curricular strand leaders how telemedicine was taught in their strands or would be taught in the future, and we provided an excel template listing the course name, session topic, date taught, session objectives, session activities, and if and how they evaluated students for that session. Next, we performed a literature search for telemedicine best practices and educational standards and created our aspirational curriculum based on available resources while incorporating our own unique educational program objectives (EPOs).

After mapping the aspirational objectives to our college’s current EPOs, we created the “Telemedicine Curriculum Coverage at FIU HWCOM” report which listed our telemedicine curricular aims and identified which courses covered those objectives. This report became the primary framework from which HWCOM could build pathways to incorporate various lessons. In addition to determining educational objectives based on telemedicine practice standards, we encouraged consideration of postpandemic practices as well as the uniformity of the students’ experience concerning telehealth. Lastly, we presented our telemedicine curriculum framework to our institution’s curricular leadership.  

Results

Table 1 outlines the results of the telemedicine curriculum assessment. Courses and clinical experiences listed in black are those where the curriculum learning objectives were already being covered; those listed in red are proposed additions to the curriculum.

Table 1: Telemedicine Curriculum Coverage at FIU HWCOM

Conclusion

We present this project in hopes that our easy-to-follow, straightforward approach can provide a framework for others embarking on similar curricular assessments and a foundation for aspirational telemedicine curricula. Next steps for our curriculum include a future reassessment of telemedicine teaching and coverage of topics. We encourage all medical schools to examine their curriculum and assess the role of telehealth in their lesson plans in order to create a framework for a comprehensive telehealth curriculum that will be efficient, effective, and long-lasting.

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank Drs. Sanaz Kashan, Vivian Obeso, Jenny Fortun, David Brown, and Carolyn Runowicz for their support.

References

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2. Association of American Medical Colleges. AAMC submits letter to CMS on future of telehealth flexibilities. AAMC. May 15, 2020. Accessed December 13, 2020. https://www.aamc.org/advocacy-policy/washington-highlights/aamc-submits-letter-cms-future-telehealth-flexibilities
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4. American Academy of Family Physicians. What’s the difference between telemedicine and telehealth? AAFP. Accessed December 13, 2020. https://www.aafp.org/news/media-center/kits/telemedicine-and-telehealth.html
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