Abstract:

Introduction:
Bedside teaching is the backbone of the medical education during the clinical years of medical school and residency. However, available clinical fields are scarce and do not match the growing demands of world-wide "production process" of new physicians (1). In Israel there is a major deficit of available clinical fields for medical trainees negatively affecting the training of our future physicians (2)(3). The use of telemedicine in the internal medicine wards as part of bedside teaching has the potential of expanding the number of students in each clinical field and enhancing the quality of education (4).

Methods:
After an approval by a local institutional review board (IRB), selected eligible patients signed an informed consent. Following this, a bedside medical education session was broadcasted on-line to students sitting in the department's lecture hall, (using an "In-Touch", remotely controlled set of cameras) while some were present in the patient room, participating in the clinical examination. Students attending the patients' rooms rotated with those sitting in the lecture room. During each session, a high-quality, bi-lateral audio and video connection enabled students in both locations to address questions to the teacher and patient alike. After the session ended, the raw videos were edited, including a thorough and meticulous anonymization process, ensuring the identity of patients would not be unveiled. The anonymized films will be uploaded to an on-line library for future usage by students, enabling their tutor to further clarify, test and recommend further readings. Questionnaires were used for students' satisfactory survey.

Results:
From January 2019 to August 2019 our department hosted a total of 26 students, 16 of them were part of the fourth-year internal medicine clerkship, and the other 9 were international students in elective. We used the tele-teaching platform during 29 bedside sessions. The satisfactory survey average score was 4.7/5. Most of our student written comments were enthusiastic. Furthermore, we were able to execute bedside teaching round despite crowded clerkships.

Conclusion:
This pivotal, "first in teaching" study, demonstrates that application of telemedicine technology has the potential to overcome the lack of clinical fields and enhance bedside teaching rounds during students' clerkships.

Keywords:

e-learning, Tele-Medicine, Bedside teaching.