Assessment of Factors That Students Perceive to Affect Their Virtual Learning of Clinical Skills for OSCE.

Purpose: Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a vital examination that must be passed to graduate as a qualified doctor. The delivery of OSCE teaching was changed to an online format to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. Therefore, this study evaluates factors that students perceive to affect their virtual learning of clinical skills for OSCE. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all medical students from across the world who attended "The Respiratory Station" session delivered by OSCEazy (a medical student organization providing free online medical education) in the academic year 2020-2021 received an online questionnaire about their perceptions of this learning opportunity. The survey was created on Google™ forms and consisted of 5-point Likert scales as well as free-text boxes. Results: A total of 556 responses were received (mean age: 24, female: 76.6%). Most students agreed that online OSCE teaching offers more flexibility and convenience (median: 5, IQR: 4-5) but their likeliness to ask questions in either format was similar (median: 4, IQR: 3-5 vs median: 4, IQR: 3-4, p value: 0.94). The use of visual aids (median: 5, IQR: 4-5) and breakout rooms (median: 3, IQR: 2-4) were thought to enhance the quality of virtual OSCE teaching. The biggest concern about online teaching was access to a stable internet connection (69.1%). Conclusion: The flexibility and convenience of virtual OSCE teaching enables the sharing of knowledge and skills to a wider audience and thus may be a very useful adjunct to face-to-face OSCE teaching in the future.

Assessing the Publicity and Reach of Peer-Led Online Medical Teaching: A Single-Event Evaluation.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption to higher education, including medical studies. Online learner support became urgently necessary, and peer-support of learning was needed to supplement formal teaching. This study evaluates the impact and delivery media of OSCEazy, a student-led initiative supporting formal teaching across institutional and national boundaries. Methods: A survey was created on Google Forms and disseminated via the Zoom chat function to all the participants at the end of our event titled, "The Cardiology Station". Results: A large proportion (99.5%) of the students have a Facebook account and (98.7%) use it to keep track of medical events (p=0.45 for comparison). However, a very small proportion of use their other social media to keep up with medical events (p<0.0001 for comparison). Conclusion: It is evident from our results, that most of our participants used Facebook to keep track of medical events. The use of their other social media platforms (Instagram, etc) to keep track of medical events was limited. Thus, it is important for any organisation, such as ours, who conduct online events to evaluate which platform is most suitable for them to use to publicise their events.