Planning Effective Remote Clinical Education

By Stephanie L. Fowler, Shawna Jackson, Andrea Gohmert, and Carol Cokely

This article is a part of the September/October 2020, Volume 32, Number 5, Audiology Today issue.

During spring 2020, higher education faced drastic changes to education delivery due to the coronavirus pandemic. The rapid change challenged clinical education goals due to clinic closures and the cessation of student participation in patient care and hands-on laboratory experiences.

The clinical coordination team at The University of Texas at Dallas focused on the clinical education of its AuD students and telehealth service delivery, embracing that this journey could improve student education and patient care beyond simply the bare minimum.

We developed remote clinical education models to meet clinical hours and continue the growth of student competencies across the scope of practice, challenge audiologists’ adaptability, and reach patients in quarantine. The feedback from audiologists and students suggested they benefited and confirmed that these lessons will be incorporated moving forward.

Given the rapid necessity of remote clinical experiences, the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) and the Council for Clinical Certification in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology announced changes to the process of AuD education. While the councils maintained the number of required clinical hours (the equivalent of 12 months of full-time experience for externships) and the proportion of hours allowed via simulation (10 percent), the nature of the simulated hours was expanded to include case-based discussion models through August 1, 2020. Furthermore, students were credited for remote participation in telehealth experiences compared to previous shoulder-to-shoulder preceptor-student models (CAA, 2020).

With these guidelines, the clinical coordination team developed three modes of remote clinical education: simulated case sessions, telehealth clinic sessions, and virtual clinic sessions.

Simulated case sessions were those in which clinicians collated case studies and used debriefing to guide students through the evidence-based diagnostic, rehabilitation, and counseling processes that occur in face-to-face encounters. Up to six students participated in these sessions, which were scheduled for one to two hours per week and included clinical assignments.