DT04: Pandemic placement: delivering the dermatology undergraduate curriculum at a UK medical school during the COVID-19 crisis

N. Mann,¹ D. Ravindran¹ and M. Sharma^1,2

¹Dermatology Department, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, Derby, UK and ²School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

In March 2020 the first educational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was experienced by medical students all over the UK. Owing to concerns regarding the safety of students, staff and patients, placements were suspended, immediately stopping educational opportunities. During the students’ absence, dermatology staff were redeployed to support acute medical areas, dermatology services were significantly reduced and the way of working changed, including increasing use of teledermatology. There was a need for social distancing, personal protective equipment and the shielding of vulnerable staff and patients, creating challenges for students to attend placement and cover their British Association of Dermatologists’ learning outcomes in the usual way. Dermatology undergraduate teaching was restructured to deliver a safe, effective and engaging placement with innovative methods. A blended learning approach was used with 1 week of e-learning and 1 week of clinical placement, in contrast to the previous 2 weeks of clinical placements. The online week – constructed to serve as a knowledge base – consisted of guided and interactive learning programmes with e-lectures, e-learning modules, videos, discussion forums and live webinars for the entire year group of 366 students. Clinical placement was adapted to maximize dermatology exposure and stimulate links from theory learnt online to real-world knowledge. Teledermatology was introduced as an educational tool for student teaching and formative assessments, using expert patient educators who were shielding and who participated via video-linked clinics. Face-to-face encounters – the cornerstone of medical student placements – were adapted with new preoperative skin cancer clinics, enabling high-yield pathology within a limited timeframe and enabling mandatory skills assessments to take place. The importance of interprofessional education was further recognized during the pandemic and pharmacist-led prescribing, dermatology specialist nurse e-learning resources and attending virtual skin cancer multidisciplinary team meetings were included in the curriculum. Student feedback on the module reflects the success of this novel programme. All felt the e-learning resources supported their learning needs, 86% rated the overall placement as > 7/10, with 18% rating it 9/10 and 32% rating it 10/10. The new adaptations to the curriculum delivery have allowed students to continue learning despite a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We may learn from these rapidly enforced changes to curriculum implementation that these new ways of teaching and learning dermatology will not only be pandemic-proof, but also equipped for the future. Likely future changes include increasing use of telemedicine and expansion of the nondermatologist workforce to meet the increasing dermatology workload.