Abstract:

Background:
Clinical placements are a significant medical student experience. UNSW Medicine’s Clinical Transition Course aims to enable students to:
• develop organisational skills for learning in the clinical environment
• promote reflection on clinical experiences to refine clinical practice.

For 2020 restrictions on clinical learning significantly impacted our student's face-to-face clinical experiences. We responded to this challenge by creating a “Tele-Hospital” - using the Microsoft Teams platform – a specifically designed online ‘workplace’ learning community.

Objective:
Evaluate the platform’s efficacy in:
• enabling student collaboration
• promoting flexible, self-directed learning
• facilitating professional and organisational skills

Data:
Medical students participated in a survey utilising the Perceived Utility of Learning Technologies Scale (PULTS) with data de-identified and collected online. We investigated engagement, user experience, learning gains and the inter-relatedness of objective outcomes above.

Analysis:
Linear regression (stepwise) model was used to identify the predictors for the level of understanding of material learnt after utilising the platform. The analysis controlled for the reported level of understanding prior to the learning within the platform. Using the predictors identified in the linear regressions, structural equation modelling was used to identify the moderating impact of understanding prior to learning within the platform and on student’s post learning perceived level of understanding.

Results:
Three factors predicted student’s post learning perception of understanding:
• motivation to learn clinical medicine instigated by the platform
• engagement with the platform for senior-peer assisted learning
• the platform’s utility in organising learning opportunities (beta's 0.219-0.281, p<0.05).
Prior learning had no significant direct or moderation impact on student’s perceived post learning understanding.

Conclusions:
The ‘Tele-hospital’ provided a motivating learning environment helping students organise their learning and engage with senior-peers, despite restrictions on physically entering the clinical (work-place) environment. Although this is not a replacement for real clinical placements, it was a valuable addition, allowing students to continue to develop their clinical practice.

Keywords:

Clinical Learning, Work-integrated learning, Learning community, Collaboration, Professionalism.