Online/Virtual Clinics feedback

[agility_tyme21]

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Hey colleagues!
For those of you whose schools have already transitioned to online clinics or have been given an outline towards how that might work, what are your thoughts/concerns/feedback about the process?
As of right now, Cornell is doing elective courses online for the next 7 weeks, but we're not sure what's happening after that and online clinics have been thrown around depending on where the world is at. Just looking to get some thoughts on other people's experiences thus far.
Stay safe everyone!

 

[PippyPony]

Hey colleagues!
For those of you whose schools have already transitioned to online clinics or have been given an outline towards how that might work, what are your thoughts/concerns/feedback about the process?
As of right now, Cornell is doing elective courses online for the next 7 weeks, but we're not sure what's happening after that and online clinics have been thrown around depending on where the world is at. Just looking to get some thoughts on other people's experiences thus far.
Stay safe everyone!

There's been a bit of recent discussion about this in the "covid & impact on schools" thread! 🙂

 

[agility_tyme21]

There's been a bit of recent discussion about this in the "covid & impact on schools" thread! 🙂

Ugh I know - sorry, I was just trying to condense info specific to clinics into one place - I've been reading through that thread since it started but was hoping to consolidate the information just into one place as we move into meetings with administration soon.

 

[PippyPony]

Ugh I know - sorry, I was just trying to condense info specific to clinics into one place - I've been reading through that thread since it started but was hoping to consolidate the information just into one place as we move into meetings with administration soon.

Fair enough.

In case it helps, you can also bookmark individual posts to save them (top right corner), or click "+quote" to add them to a list that you can quote all at once. (Just in case there have been things already posted that you want to reference later in one spot.)

 

[PippyPony]

One benefit to the online clinics that I don't think I mentioned in the other thread:

I don't think we would be getting great hands on experience even if we were in the hospital right now.

On the service I'm "on" now, case volume is about 1/8th of what it normally is this time of year. And it's nothing except emergencies (which are also lower volume because they're not going around to shows, etc) so there is less diversity in the few cases we do have. If we were in the hospital, I think they would be struggling to find useful things for us to do.

I do appreciate getting updates about those few cases, but imo it wouldn't be worth it to "assign" cases to students like they normally would. There just isn't enough to go around.

So if I were your school and thinking about how to design this, I would say don't bank on having a rich current caseload to leverage as the primary activity.

 

[LyraGardenia]

One benefit to the online clinics that I don't think I mentioned in the other thread:

I don't think we would be getting great hands on experience even if we were in the hospital right now.

On the service I'm "on" now, case volume is about 1/8th of what it normally is this time of year. And it's nothing except emergencies (which are also lower volume because they're not going around to shows, etc) so there is less diversity in the few cases we do have. If we were in the hospital, I think they would be struggling to find useful things for us to do.

I do appreciate getting updates about those few cases, but imo it wouldn't be worth it to "assign" cases to students like they normally would. There just isn't enough to go around.

So if I were your school and thinking about how to design this, I would say don't bank on having a rich current caseload to leverage as the primary activity.

The same is true here. We're starting online clinics next week, so I'm not sure how exactly it will work yet, but it sounds like a lot of it will be working up mock cases. This week on soft tissue surgery in the hospital I saw one whole case. It was a cool surgery, and my patient didn't go home until Thursday, but that's really abnormal for this rotation. Radiology before that was also slow once we went to emergency/urgent appointments only, even with sending half of the students home each day after rounds. One day we only had 4 ultrasounds, which is about half to a third of what we do in a normal day, and I think 3 of those were oncology staging appointments that technically shouldn't have been there.

 

[Lucy410]

I'm curious about this too. Davis is offering us the opportunity for online clinics, but I believe it's at the discretion of each service based on whether the clinicians feel they can put together a worthwhile distance learning experience. These virtual rotations will be pass/fail. We were supposed to start clinics April 13th but at the moment we are not to report for clinics until May 26th (I wouldn't be surprised if that gets pushed back further). Between now and then we have one week of mandatory vacation (which existed in the schedule before COVID hit) and two weeks of online didactics. Roughly half of us have an additional two weeks of online didactics (electives). So everyone is left with 2-4 weeks of virtual clinics before May 26th. The Associate Dean is meeting with our class via Zoom in a few days to give us more info, but my understanding right now is that we will have the choice of doing virtual clinics now or delaying our start date to wait for in-person rotations, which would mean we would not graduate on time.

I'm honestly torn on what to do. I don't want to delay my graduation further, but since I will not be going on to internship or residency I really don't want to miss out on the hands-on learning clinics are supposed to provide. But I'm also sheltering in place with my three-year-old while my husband works from home, so trying to keep the little one busy while I do virtual clinics would be a struggle. I guess we'll know more soon so I can figure out my life then.

 

[nyanko]

From the perspective of instructing for virtual clinics, at this point in time what we are doing on our service is having a set schedule for topic rounds in the morning and case rounds in the afternoon/evening, all via zoom. The residents/faculty who are working from home (only 1/3 of the service is on site at a time, so that we have people to cover in case one 'team' gets exposed to the virus) are running the topic rounds every morning and the ones in clinics are trying to do the afternoon rounds if not too busy. We do a little bit of interactive discussion for topic rounds and then move on to example cases. For case rounds we try to go over neuro exam, process of localization and differentials, relevant diagnostic findings including MRI when applicable, and what sort of treatments were pursued, for all inpatients. We also have a surgery head-cam (with audio) so that everyone can watch any surgeries being done from the surgeon's perspective.

The reality is that for the residents/faculty who are on service it is a little bit challenging to be able to do these things on time. With no students on service we are obviously doing our own treatments, and when there's a 100 lb down dog it will just take longer for us to do things like get the dog up and examine it ourselves than it would if we had students helping us. So most of the instruction falls to those who are not on at the time. It's still a work in progress and we are really trying to make it something that will still help the students learn.

 

[Coopah]

I'm curious about this too. Davis is offering us the opportunity for online clinics, but I believe it's at the discretion of each service based on whether the clinicians feel they can put together a worthwhile distance learning experience. These virtual rotations will be pass/fail. We were supposed to start clinics April 13th but at the moment we are not to report for clinics until May 26th (I wouldn't be surprised if that gets pushed back further). Between now and then we have one week of mandatory vacation (which existed in the schedule before COVID hit) and two weeks of online didactics. Roughly half of us have an additional two weeks of online didactics (electives). So everyone is left with 2-4 weeks of virtual clinics before May 26th. The Associate Dean is meeting with our class via Zoom in a few days to give us more info, but my understanding right now is that we will have the choice of doing virtual clinics now or delaying our start date to wait for in-person rotations, which would mean we would not graduate on time.

I'm honestly torn on what to do. I don't want to delay my graduation further, but since I will not be going on to internship or residency I really don't want to miss out on the hands-on learning clinics are supposed to provide. But I'm also sheltering in place with my three-year-old while my husband works from home, so trying to keep the little one busy while I do virtual clinics would be a struggle. I guess we'll know more soon so I can figure out my life then.

It's my understanding from the various emails that it wouldn't necessarily delay graduation. It would severely cut down on electives but they would allow you to prioritize core rotations when we're allowed back. That being said I don't know if anything gets delayed this will hold true. And depending on the individual some electives may be important enough to prioritize.

I feel for you and everyone at home with family during this time. You guys are rock stars!

 

[Lucy410]

It's my understanding from the various emails that it wouldn't necessarily delay graduation. It would severely cut down on electives but they would allow you to prioritize core rotations when we're allowed back. That being said I don't know if anything gets delayed this will hold true. And depending on the individual some electives may be important enough to prioritize.

I feel for you and everyone at home with family during this time. You guys are rock stars!

Thanks Coopah! Personally, I would rather graduate late than lose a bunch of electives, since I feel like I really need them to be successful. I was actually always going to graduate late (I was on target to finish the third week of July 2021) due to accommodations for a physical health issue. However, getting that pushed back even further, into August or September, gets increasingly tricky in terms of job hunting and moving after graduation, particularly because my child will be starting kindergarten in fall '21 so we want to be settled somewhere by then. But we'll figure it out!

 

[Coopah]

Thanks Coopah! Personally, I would rather graduate late than lose a bunch of electives, since I feel like I really need them to be successful. I was actually always going to graduate late (I was on target to finish the third week of July 2021) due to accommodations for a physical health issue. However, getting that pushed back even further, into August or September, gets increasingly tricky in terms of job hunting and moving after graduation, particularly because my child will be starting kindergarten in fall '21 so we want to be settled somewhere by then. But we'll figure it out!

If anyone can do it you can! Hopefully the meeting tomorrow will clear up a lot of the questions I still have.

 

[battie]

Not in regards to @Lucy410 's specific situation, but my feelings on having fewer rotations overall vs having all rotations but graduate late:

I dont see the point in staying in school just to have more rotations. Isnt there a saying that you learn more in your first year out than you learn in all vet school? I dont think we as a class (across all vet schools) would gain much by staying in school and graduating late that we wouldn't get on the job. It would definitely need to be a person by person basis.

 

[DVMoftheFuture]

Not in regards to @Lucy410 's specific situation, but my feelings on having fewer rotations overall vs having all rotations but graduate late:

I dont see the point in staying in school just to have more rotations. Isnt there a saying that you learn more in your first year out than you learn in all vet school? I dont think we as a class (across all vet schools) would gain much by staying in school and graduating late that we wouldn't get on the job. It would definitely need to be a person by person basis.

This is what I was wondering too. Some of my classmates are pretty upset at the prospect of missing rotations or taking them online. They are feeling that this would give them a substandard education and leave them unready to practice. I've always heard though that no one is really completely ready to practice when they graduate - a lot of learning happens in that first year. I realize it's not ideal to be missing rotations, but it's not like the vet school intended for that to be the case, and I'm personally not feeling like it's going to make or break my education.

 

[battie]

I realize it's not ideal to be missing rotations, but it's not like the vet school intended for that to be the case, and I'm personally not feeling like it's going to make or break my education.

I agree specifically with this point. My class would get our full core rotations required of everyone to graduate if we started in September. We would miss out on electives and, more importantly, our off blocks. But we would have a similar clinical experience of every other class in the country as well. Electives are just that, electives. And we have already been asked to rank which are most important to us, so our electives and off blocks arent being thrown out willy nilly.

 

[Lucy410]

Not in regards to @Lucy410 's specific situation, but my feelings on having fewer rotations overall vs having all rotations but graduate late:

I dont see the point in staying in school just to have more rotations. Isnt there a saying that you learn more in your first year out than you learn in all vet school? I dont think we as a class (across all vet schools) would gain much by staying in school and graduating late that we wouldn't get on the job. It would definitely need to be a person by person basis.

That's fair. In my case, staying late isn't a huge deal to me because I've been planning for that anyway, for other reasons. I'd rather not just lose the hands-on learning. But I agree, missing some electives isn't going to make or break your education.

They just updated us to say everyone in our class is losing one rotation over the next 1.5 months because they need to focus on getting the graduating class completed. They are offering us a virtual CPR course we could do in that unscheduled time, though. It sounds like we can choose to reschedule the missed rotation over an elective later in the year, stay after graduation (though this is not required), or just graduate without it if it's not core.

 

[Coopah]

That's fair. In my case, staying late isn't a huge deal to me because I've been planning for that anyway, for other reasons. I'd rather not just lose the hands-on learning. But I agree, missing some electives isn't going to make or break your education.

They just updated us to say everyone in our class is losing one rotation over the next 1.5 months because they need to focus on getting the graduating class completed. They are offering us a virtual CPR course we could do in that unscheduled time, though. It sounds like we can choose to reschedule the missed rotation over an elective later in the year, stay after graduation (though this is not required), or just graduate without it if it's not core.

Did you actually understand that because from what I've heard that's still only group 1. Unless they're randomly taking a rotation away from group 2 (which no one in group 2 has said anything about that or noticed). Ah well, I suppose all will be revealed in due time!

 

[Lucy410]

Did you actually understand that because from what I've heard that's still only group 1. Unless they're randomly taking a rotation away from group 2 (which no one in group 2 has said anything about that or noticed). Ah well, I suppose all will be revealed in due time!

In her email today I read that weeks 1-2 and 5-6 are not going to be available for virtual clinics. It sounded like there's a possibility weeks 5-6 might end up being available for group 2, but as of now they are holding them for the graduating class only.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

We had our meeting this morning and we’re definitely not going to be in the clinic until at least June 22. They’ll make a decision about that being feasible at the end of May. We are starting a week later then we were going to, have a week of online orientation, and then everyone is going to take the same three rotations online (prev med, pathology, radiology). They’ll re-lottery the blocks we missed if we want/need them. The only bright side is we’re now only required to spend 2 weeks in food or farm animal as SA CAE compared to 8 lol. The rest of the blocks are theoretically staying the same but they are making a plan if there’s extra waves of this...

I think my big concern right now is what happens with rec letters and stuff for internship if we aren’t in the clinic. I wonder how Match is going to be affected.

 

[Coopah]

We had our meeting this morning and we’re definitely not going to be in the clinic until at least June 22. They’ll make a decision about that being feasible at the end of May. We are starting a week later then we were going to, have a week of online orientation, and then everyone is going to take the same three rotations online (prev med, pathology, radiology). They’ll re-lottery the blocks we missed if we want/need them. The only bright side is we’re now only required to spend 2 weeks in food or farm animal as SA CAE compared to 8 lol. The rest of the blocks are theoretically staying the same but they are making a plan if there’s extra waves of this...

I think my big concern right now is what happens with rec letters and stuff for internship if we aren’t in the clinic. I wonder how March is going to be affected.

Yup I've had these same thoughts. So far we're scheduled to be back in clinics May 25th and I don't know where the administration is getting their information but they're saying forth years will be allowed back in the two weeks before that! I'm kind of doubtful but if it's true that'd be fantastic (assuming that means we aren't perpetuating a health crisis).

 

[mmmdreamerz]

Yup I've had these same thoughts. So far we're scheduled to be back in clinics May 25th and I don't know where the administration is getting their information but they're saying forth years will be allowed back in the two weeks before that! I'm kind of doubtful but if it's true that'd be fantastic (assuming that means we aren't perpetuating a health crisis).

that sounds nice. I think CA is a little ahead of OH in terms of the timeline of this, so maybe!
they mentioned this morning that the heads of various schools involved with match have been discussing changes and they recognize the challenges of all of this so I’ll be interested to see if/how things will be different this year

 

[Coopah]

that sounds nice. I think CA is a little ahead of OH in terms of the timeline of this, so maybe!
they mentioned this morning that the heads of various schools involved with match have been discussing changes and they recognize the challenges of all of this so I’ll be interested to see if/how things will be different this year

I'm worried that means they'll rely more on things like academics. But probably it'll only mean they'll require less in-person interviews and such

 

[mmmdreamerz]

I'm worried that means they'll rely more on things like academics. But probably it'll only mean they'll require less in-person interviews and such

Yeah I’m not sure what theyre thinking. I just hope it all works out okay

 

[battie]

Yup I've had these same thoughts. So far we're scheduled to be back in clinics May 25th and I don't know where the administration is getting their information but they're saying forth years will be allowed back in the two weeks before that! I'm kind of doubtful but if it's true that'd be fantastic (assuming that means we aren't perpetuating a health crisis).

At this point, we are scheduled to start May 11. I think part of that is because the old 4th years will graduate the Friday before, so there will be no overlap of students in the hospital

 

[Coopah]

At this point, we are scheduled to start May 11. I think part of that is because the old 4th years will graduate the Friday before, so there will be no overlap of students in the hospital

Yup they've explicitly said that they're not allowing the third years in the hospital when the forth years are there.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

At this point, we are scheduled to start May 11. I think part of that is because the old 4th years will graduate the Friday before, so there will be no overlap of students in the hospital

Yup they've explicitly said that they're not allowing the third years in the hospital when the forth years are there.

There are zero students in our hospital at this point.

 

[Coopah]

There are zero students in our hospital at this point.

None here either, but if they allow student in, it's only gonna be forth years until they graduate.

 

[battie]

There are zero students in our hospital at this point.

Yeah, we havent had students there for several weeks now. But normally there would have been two classes in the hospital for the last week. So I think they're keeping new 4th years out until May 11 at the earliest so if they can let us back in, it would only be the old 4th years there.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

Yeah, we havent had students there for several weeks now. But normally there would have been two classes in the hospital for the last week. So I think they're keeping new 4th years out until May 11 at the earliest so if they can let us back in, it would only be the old 4th years there.

Got ya. We never have classes overlap.

 

[battie]

Got ya. We never have classes overlap.

We normally overlap by 6 weeks since we start 4th year in March. The new 4th years start clinics and the old 4th years are on professional development, where they're supposed to have more focused 6 weeks.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

We now aren’t starting in the clinic until at least July 6th...quite honestly I’m trying really hard to be positive about this, but every time they push it back or take something away it gets harder. Sigh.