Disclosures: Matthew C. Severson, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: Telemedicine became widely utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue as a mode of patient care. As such, resident physicians should receive education in conducting virtual visits. Telemedicine education was provided during resident didactics. Objectives for the didactic session were to describe why telemedicine is an important topic for trainee education, explore benefits and challenges of telemedicine, outline considerations and preparations when conducting a virtual visit, describe and practice musculoskeletal and neurological virtual physical exam techniques, and outline resources available to assist with virtual visits.

Design: A pre-session survey sent to the residents assessed telemedicine related learning needs and their preparedness for virtual visits. A virtual didactic session was created utilizing active learning to address the outlined learning needs of interest. A post-session survey re-assessed the learners’ degree of preparedness for telemedicine encounters.Setting : Tertiary care medical centerParticipants : 23 Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) residents and 2 attending physicians

Interventions: A 2.5 hour virtual didactic session, developed in collaboration with residents and attending physicians, was conducted. Topics were based on initial survey responses. The session design incorporated multiple presenters, various forms of polling questions, frequent scheduled breaks, pre-recorded virtual physical exam videos, and multiple virtual breakout rooms to allow participants to immediately practice exam skills.

Main Outcome Measures: Response to an anonymous survey gauging residents’ preparedness for independently completing a telemedicine visit.

Results: 16/23 residents responded to the initial survey. None reported being more than moderately prepared to conduct a virtual visit. 17/23 residents responded to the post-didactic follow-up survey. All indicated at least a moderate level of preparedness, and 14/17 indicated greater than moderate preparedness.Conclusions: Virtual didactic sessions involving active engagement of participants can improve PM&R residents’ preparedness for telemedicine encounters that will utilize the same virtual platform. Incorporating various learning theories and learning styles may help to maintain attendee participation during virtual learning.

Level of Evidence: Level IV

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/the-doctor-will-zoom-you-now-preparing-pmr-residents-for-telemedicine-visits/