Moving mountains to deliver online naturopathic education Transferring CCNM’s Doctor of Naturopathy program and clinical education into the online world involved nonstop collaboration from all departmental teams. Working together like never before, the College achieved something truly remarkable in an impossibly short timeframe.
Every CCNM staff member, academic instructor, clinic supervisor and student will never forget March 2020. We challenged ourselves to evolve, and we did. MOVING PATIENT CARE AND CLINICAL INTERNS ONLINE
On order from Ontario’s Ministry of Health and the profession’s regulator, the College of Naturopaths of Ontario, all naturopathic medical clinics were shut down for patient care in March. Immediately, CCNM’s clinical operations team began moving towards implementing telemedicine at the Robert Schad Naturopathic Clinic (RSNC) and investigated several online platforms that could best reproduce the patient experience (eventually settling on Doxy.me).
With roughly six weeks remaining in the clinical year, the fourth-year interns were understandably nervous and apprehensive about how they would complete their graduation requirements. In lieu of in-person visits to the RSNC, Dr. Mitchell Zeifman, ND (Class of 2003), Associate Dean of Clinical Education, initially modified several parameters of student assessment to align with the new online system. But as telemedicine continued, opportunities presented to improve overall clinical education and standards of care. First, interns who had not completed the minimum requirements for certain clinical activities before the switch to telemedicine were expected to complete competency based examinations. Evaluations for
Doxy.me CCNM’s clinical operations team closed down and began moving towards implementing telemedicine at the Robert Schad Naturopathic Clinic (RSNC) and eventually selected doxy.me as the online platform that could best recreate the patient experience.
4 CCNM Report to the Community 2020
naturopathic manipulation, for example, involved a clinic supervisor presenting a case to the interns and asking them to describe how they would perform a patient intake and what maneuvers they might use. Second, when the new group of clinical interns started in May, training on how to use the RSNC’s virtual platforms, including Doxy.me and Med Access, started promptly. Using online training developed by clinic staff, they were taught how to use the systems to make informed decisions regarding patient care. Virtual resources set up in Microsoft Teams provided RSNC supervisors with additional, clinically relevant activities or teaching opportunities during shifts.
