Table 1 Recommendations to meet training needs of medical students during COVID-19

COVID-19 specific

• Learning how to communicate with patients in a non-judgmental yet persuasive manner about public health measures such as social distancing, mask use and vaccinations

• COVID-19 specific learnings to ensure correct information is passed on to non-medical family members

• Personal Protective Equipment use

• Nasal-pharyngeal swabbing

Telehealth specific

• Students reported they would like to learn the following and preferably start in 1st year:

o how to talk/consult over the phone

o strategies on how to build rapport over the phone or videocall

o how to use the applications

o communications skills over the internet

o principles of telehealth

o communication technology

• Start with the basics such as principles of telehealth, communication technology, communication training and then move into integrating different technologies.

• Teach medical educators how to teach online, how to run meetings and keep students engaged

• Integrate telehealth training into the entire  medical program as one or two hours on how to use SKYPE is not enough in the hope that people will adopt it later on

• Patients require training to be able to communicate with their clinicians

• Rural clinical schools are most suited to develop and teach these courses given their long history, pioneering and telehealth being integral to rural healthcare

Advanced technology

• Need to learn the basics first before learning about more complicated technology such as Artificial intelligence and Augmented Reality.