Abstract Details

Title Neurology Clerkship Education During COVID-19: Identifying and Addressing Obstacles

Topic Research Methodology, Education, and History

Presentation(s) Research Methodology and Education Posters (7:00 AM-5:00 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 040

Background The Neurology clerkship at our institution consists of a variety of inpatient and outpatient experiences, as well as lectures and simulations. Students are evaluated on their performance and provide evaluations of each clerkship component. When medical students resumed the Neurology rotation in July, they returned to the wards and outpatient clinics, and the one-time in-person simulation. However, students could not see patients in the emergency department, or COVID positive patients, and didactics were converted to a live, virtual platform.

Objective The pandemic has disrupted traditional medical school education. We began evaluating the educational impact of the pandemic on the Neurology clerkship.

Design/Methods We compared medical students’ evaluations of the Neurology clerkship before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to start learning how the pandemic has affected medical education.

Results In student evaluations of the clerkship, virtual didactic ratings were unchanged from the in-person didactics (100% of students rated didactics as “good” or “excellent” pre-pandemic and during the pandemic). When surveyed, Neurology lecturers (N=13) felt students seemed less engaged (92%) and there were mixed sentiments on how much was learned during virtual didactics. While the students’ rating of the overall educational quality of the clerkship has increased each year (rated as “excellent” 51% in 2018, 61% in 2019, 67% in January and February 2020), during the pandemic this rating dropped to 43% in July and August.

Conclusions There are unavoidable obstacles and educational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students value didactics similarly whether they are in person or virtual, though lecturers note a drop in level of engagement. The overall decline in medical student rating of the clerkship during the pandemic months was likely multifactorial and could be a focus of future study. To further measure the pandemic’s impact, we plan to compare students’ performance in simulations and written case write-ups before and during the pandemic.

Authors/Disclosures
Rebecca Stainman, MD (Nemour's Children's Health) PRESENTER	Dr. Stainman has nothing to disclose.
Jonathan Howard, MD (Bellevue Hospital)	Dr. Howard has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving on a Speakers Bureau for MCE Conferences. Dr. Howard has received publishing royalties from a publication relating to health care. Dr. Howard has a non-compensated relationship as a Test writer with ABPN that is relevant to AAN interests or activities.
Rajeev Motiwala, MD, FAAN (NYU Langone School of Medicine)	Dr. Motiwala has nothing to disclose.
Arielle M. Kurzweil, MD, FAAN (NYU)	Dr. Kurzweil has nothing to disclose.