Evaluation of an interactive virtual surgical rotation during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: To evaluate medical student and attending surgeon experiences with a novel interactive virtual Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery (OHNS) medical student elective during the COVID-19 pandemic.Study Design: A virtual OHNS elective was created, with three components: (1) interactive virtual operating room (OR) experience using live-stream video-conferencing, (2) telehealth clinic, (3) virtual didactics.Setting: OHNS Department at the University of Pennsylvania (May 2020 to June 2020).Methods: Six medical students from the University of Pennsylvania; five attending otolaryngologists. Two surveys were designed and distributed to participating medical students and attending surgeons. Surveys included 5-point Likert scale items, with 1 indicating "not at all" and 5 indicating "very much so" .Results: Response rate was 100% for both surveys. Students on average rated the educational value of the telehealth experience as 4.2 ± 1.2, and the virtual OR experience as 4.0 ± 0.6. Most students (n = 5, 83%) indicated that they had enough exposure to faculty they met on this rotation to ask for a letter of recommendation (LOR) for residency if needed, while attending surgeons had an average response of 3.0 ± 1.0 when asked how comfortable they would feel writing a LOR for a student they met through the rotation. A majority of students (n= 4, 67%) felt they connected enough with faculty during the rotation to ask for mentorship. Half the students (n = 5, 50%) indicated that the rotation allowed them to evaluate the department’’s culture either "extremely well" or "somewhat well" .Conclusions: Overall, participating students described this innovative virtual surgical rotation as an educationally and professionally valuable experience. With the continued suspension of visiting student rotations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this virtual model may have continued relevance to medical education.