Perceived Clinical Readiness of Senior Medical Students as Outcomes of Online Clerkship in the Philippines: New Normal in Medical Education

ABSTRACT TITLE Perceived Clinical Readiness of Senior Medical Students as Outcomes 0f Online Clerkship in the Philippines: New Normal in Medical Education INTRODUCTION COVID-19 formed new challenges to the medical institutions; it resulted in the transition from the usual face-to-face classes and direct clerkship training within the hospital to a new remote learning with online lectures and virtual clinical experience. Given the new online interactive setting, problems were raised given the limited patient care and interaction as well as restricted bedside teaching opportunities and its impact on how medical students can acquire and hone their clinical skills. OBJECTIVE To determine the perceived clinical readiness of the medical clerks in the new normal setting in the Philippines. METHODOLOGY Convenience sampling was used to gather respondents who were asked to answer an online survey questionnaire. The questions pertained to: academic training profile, clinical skills, patient management, communication, understanding clinical guidelines, and personal development. After analyzing the data, the scales of readiness from these subjects were gathered. RESULTS The medical clerks in the Philippines perceived that they were ready with regards to understanding clinical guidelines, communication, personal development, and patient management. They were moderately ready in the different clinical skills in the departments of Family and Community Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynecology with some specific skills in Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynecology being perceived as less ready than the rest. CONCLUSION The impact of the pandemic has disrupted the student’s confidence and readiness. This shows that online clerkship in this time of pandemic may have provided learning to a certain degree but it is not enough to replace what face-to-face training could offer.