Dr. Kanga Successfully Converts Psychiatry Clerkship to Virtual Learning

In the spring of 2020 as students were sent home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fareesh Hobbs Kanga, MD, had a clerkship that needed to be transitioned to a virtual format, and in a short amount of time. This was no easy task because her course requires in-person instruction and “authentic clinical experiences,” according to the Liaison Committee on Medicine Education (LCME).

Mere days before the clerkship was set to restart, Dr. Kanga swiftly drafted a plan aimed at incorporating students into as many real-life telehealth sessions as possible. Residents from the UK College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry invited medical students into their telehealth appointments at the outpatient clinic, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Lexington allowed students to join Zoom support groups for clients with mental illness. Dr. Kanga also collaborated with Eastern State Hospital, which piloted virtual teaching rounds.

During the course’s direct observations, when students must have an attending psychiatrist observe them taking a history and perform a mental status exam on a patient, students were not allowed to hold face-to-face visits with patients. “Instead, several of our wonderful psychiatry residents agreed to be standardized patients, like actors, for an evaluation on Zoom,” Dr. Kanga said. “With the help of Dr. Todd Cheever, who provided a patient script, and Jodi Smith, who coordinated all of the schedules, the residents portrayed the scripted patient while the student performed a history and discussed the mental status exam with an attending present.”

Meanwhile, all didactic lectures in the course were moved to Zoom. Students completed modules from the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP), which allowed them to watch a diagnostic psychiatric evaluation, answer questions about interviewing, take history and examine patients, and work through diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Kanga also held extra sessions and meetings, and students completed their psychiatry shelf exam at home on their computers with their phones set up so that instructors could proctor remotely.

The result was a viable alternative that allowed continuous learning for third-year students during the pandemic. n

MD 828 VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM PROVIDES UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS TO APPLY COURSE KNOWLEDGE

As a new course director for MD 828, Gastrointestinal System and Nutrition, April Hatcher, PhD, knew she wanted to put a creative spin on how she taught these subjects to her secondyear students.

Capitalizing on the expansion of virtual platforms, she and a team of faculty and staff at the College of Medicine established a unique opportunity for students to apply the knowledge gained from the course.

Dr. Hatcher, who is an associate professor of neuroscience, and clinical director, Lauren Craig, MD, associate professor of medicine, organized a two-hour virtual symposium during the final week of MD 828 for students to hold online presentations on what they learned about gastrointestinal (GI)-related topics. Functioning as a mini-conference, the symposium was designed for students to relate GI diseases or conditions to a sociocultural perspective, integrate perspectives of multiple stakeholders, and describe how the experience will influence their approach to patients when they become physicians.

“Our students capitalized on this opportunity and used their projects to develop in-depth knowledge they will use in their future careers. The results were quite extraordinary,” Acting Provost Robert DiPaola, MD, said. “In a time when faculty had to quickly adapt their instruction to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Hatcher and Dr. Craig developed an innovative model for how virtual medical education can work so successfully.” n

April Hatcher, PhD Lauren Craig, MD