Medical educator’s experiences of teaching clinical skills online to medical students during COVID-19

Traditional hands-on instruction of clinical skills in undergraduate medical education faced a paradigm shift with the emergence of COVID-19. Online teaching through virtual learning environments swiftly replaced traditional methods, necessitating an urgent reassessment of clinical skills education. Despite this, a knowledge gap persists regarding the effective delivery and integration of online clinical skills teaching within established medical curricula. This study investigated UK based medical educators and their experiences teaching clinical skills in an online environment enforced by social distancing. From these results we aimed to explore how aspects of online teaching can be strategically employed within the current landscape of medical education to optimize practical skills acquisition. A cross-sectional study design employing a survey with closed and open-ended questions was utilized. The survey was hosted through the online survey platform EU Qualtrics and approved by the Education Leads Advisory Group of the Medical Schools Council for further distribution to medical educators. The results were analysed by frequency of answers with accompanying thematic analysis. This study gathered responses from 22 medical educators of various seniority across 11 UK universities. Pre-pandemic, educators reported low experience with online teaching (mean score 1.96/5) (SD = 0.81). During the March–Sept 2020 lockdown, 18% cancelled all clinical skills teaching, while 50% adopted blended learning; 67% viewed the shift positively. Challenges included technology issues and difficulty replicating hands-on practice, though some found improved engagement and flexibility for non-practical skill, communication skills teaching in particular was well-received. Post-pandemic, 65% disagreed that online teaching alone achieves competency however, 89% supported retaining some online innovations, citing flexibility and efficiency, but stressed the need for face-to-face (F2F) supervision and practice for full skills mastery. Despite uncertainties, educators acknowledged the benefits of online learning, emphasizing the need for proper resources and training for successful integration into clinical skills teaching. Despite a preference for online teaching in non-practical skills, educators continued to express reservations about fully replacing F2F clinical skills teaching due to technological challenges and limited digital fluency. The overall preference among educators leaned towards a blended approach utilising both modalities, harnessing benefits of online teaching while retaining the advantages of traditional methods.