Clinical Skills Development in the Virtual Learning Environment: Adapting to a New World

Background

Health professional degrees culminate in licensure exams, which are required for clinicians to enter the workforce. Respective accreditation bodies provide guidance to ensure that graduates are practice-ready. While programmatic structure varies among disciplines and programs in course format, duration, schedule, faculty model, and number of campuses served, a common thread is the use of active learning and simulation to enhance critical thinking and develop hands-on clinical skills in various settings (Bonwell & Eisen, 1991). The scope of this chapter encompasses various health professions that require training in clinical, technical, and communication skills including athletic training, audiology, dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant, and social work.

Accredited programs require satisfactory completion of a minimum number of clinical hours to ensure that graduates are practice-ready in real-world settings. However, the different accreditation bodies that guide various health disciplines define and quantify simulation in various ways (Table 1). The COVID-19 pandemic has posed multiple challenges that require adjustment, necessitating faculty to become ever more resourceful to rapidly adapt to virtual learning. From a faculty perspective, the amount of time needed to modify existing course materials for the virtual learning environment represented an unexpected expansion of the faculty workload. The ability to involve adjunct faculty members in this process remotely has been advantageous in increasing their involvement in the didactic setting. Students have shared that many feel overwhelmed, disengaged, and lack a sense of community with virtual learning. These factors should be taken under consideration by faculty when reformatting courses and focusing on clinical skills development.