Developing and Measuring Effectiveness of a Distance Learning Dermatology Course: A Prospective Observational Study
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions transitioned to online learning or participation in telehealth as a substitute for clinical rotations. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, Maryland) relied heavily on e-learning during this time as an alternative means for meeting educational objectives. We report the positive results of a prospective study evaluating short-term information recall and comprehension as well as students’ confidence in their ability to apply course objectives over 3 months of an online distance learning (DL) dermatology course.
Practice Points
- An e-learning distance learning (DL) dermatology course can substantially improve clinically relevant skills and knowledge in dermatology.
- A DL dermatology course may serve as an alternative to clinical rotations for those who wish to learn dermatology more broadly and are not interested in performing skin procedures or direct patient exposure.
Comment
The DL dermatology course succeeded in helping the enrolled students attain course objectives and offered a reasonable solution when in-person interaction was restricted. The students in the DL course made notable improvements in their dermatology knowledge and improved their communication, diagnosis, and management skills. Although a blended dermatology curriculum with e-learning combined with clinical experience has been shown to increase knowledge acquisition,13,14 our results suggest that an online-only program also can increase comprehension as well as students’ confidence in their abilities.
A major challenge for the DL course was the lack of opportunity to perform common dermatology procedures. The addition of a hands-on skin procedure module would have been a great supplement to the course but was not possible due to social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The small sample size and voluntary enrollment were limitations to this study.
Conclusion
Although the traditional dermatology rotation remains the gold standard for clinical instruction, a well-organized DL teaching environment allowed for a more controlled learning experience with a broader coverage of topics to include potentially greater exposure to rare skin disorders not typically encountered in everyday practice. A DL dermatology course may serve as an enduring curriculum for those who wish to learn dermatology more broadly and are not interested in performing skin procedures or direct patient exposure (eg, those pursuing non–primary care specialties, pathology, or radiology). It also may be attractive to students who have had a prior clinical dermatology rotation and desire a different learning experience with a wide coverage of topics.
Acknowledgments—The authors thank Thomas Darling, MD, PhD (Bethesda, Maryland), for coining the term Clinpic and providing critical feedback throughout the course. The authors also thank Sorana Raiciulescu, MS (Bethesda, Maryland), for assistance with the statistical analysis.
