Background: COVID-19 is an emerging illness that the medical community learns more about with each passing day. As medical students go out on their rotations, they receive differing levels of education about the disease and its treatment modalities. Our study aim was to gather baseline information about the knowledge 4th-year medical students were receiving in regard to COVID-19 and the pandemic’s impact on medical education.ObjectivesPrimary: To determine fourth-year medical students’ education and exposure to patients with COVID-19 and its complications. Secondary:To elucidate how medical students’ education was impacted by COVID-19To identify resources used to learn about COVID-19To learn about the medical students’ perception of the severity of COVID-19
Methods: This project underwent IRB review and was considered exempt by Touro University Nevada Institutional Review Board (IRB). A cross-sectional survey design was used to investigate topic areas that included: · Clinical rotations impacted by COVID-19· Education and exposure to patients with COVID-19 and those suffering from complications of the disease· Resources used and education provided on COVID-19 treatment· Perceptions on severity of infection of COVID-19 and outcomes in specific patient populations· Level of comfort managing patients with COVID-19 Fourth-year medical students who had previously opted in to receive messages regarding research were sent an email inviting them to participate in the survey. Survey responses were collected using Qualtrics anonymously. Students who completed the survey were offered to be entered into a raffle for a $50 or $25-dollar gift card to Amazon for their time. Two reminder emails were sent, and one Facebook post was made to remind respondents to complete the survey. The survey was sent out at the end of the academic year when many of these students were getting ready to enter residency programs. Responses were collected from May 5th through May 27th, 2021.
Results: Participants (19, 32% response rate) were medical school graduates from the class of 2021. All respondents had to take at least one virtual rotation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around ⅓ of the participants were not involved in the care of any COVID-19 patients (n=7). If they were involved in the care of a COVID-19 patient, it was most commonly in the emergency room (n=8) or inpatient setting (n=6). No students witnessed OMM used in these patients and reported mostly steroids and oxygen as the primary treatments. There were a wide range of complications of COVID-19 witnessed including decreased exercise tolerance (n=7), pneumonia (n=6) and stroke (n=3). The severity of infection impacted the level of comfort respondents reported when managing patients infected with COVID-19, with 9 respondents who felt extremely uncomfortable with treating someone in the intensive care unit.
Conclusions: Our study indicated that medical students appear to have very different ranges of exposure to COVID-19 and its treatment modalities in the acute and chronic settings. Most respondents overestimated the severity of the illness, expecting that 50% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 would die when this number is closer to 20-30%. This study highlights the importance of the need to adequately educate residents treating COVID-19 and identifying and highlighting helpful resources for interns, such as the Brighman’s COVID-19 protocol. A major limitation of this study is the small sample size, and its interpretation should take this into consideration.