Abstract

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, our team of six junior doctors provided weekly online simulation-based teaching for the interim Foundation Year 1 (FiY1) doctors across the East of England. Each session included feedback on areas for future topics, one of the most sought-after was prescribing.

Methods: We distributed a questionnaire assessing confidence in prescribing common medications, and overall in the acute setting. This was measured using a scale of 1 (not confident) to 5 (very confident). From this we designed six scenarios, delivered via a one hour ‘Zoom’ session, addressing common prescribing topics encountered when on-call. Six volunteers took on the role of FY1 to assess and prescribe for our simulated patients. They prescribed alongside a live demonstrator on the drug charts, with pre-written prescriptions and teaching points discussed afterwards. We asked all attendees to repeat the questionnaire with their confidence level following the session.

Results: 49 individuals completed both pre- and post-questionnaires, with an overall confidence score increase of 1.2 points (24% increase). Each topic had a statistically significant increase in confidence (0.92 - 1.65, P<0.01 for all six topics). 61.5% rated the online format 5/5, and 98.5% would recommend this session to a colleague.

Conclusion: Using remote teaching to deliver important topics to FiY1s is a useful means to ameliorate the teaching lost due to COVID-19. It is effective in helping improve confidence when prescribing and is a useful medium to cover other important topics to help new doctors feel more prepared taking on their FY1 role.

Additional Information

This work was presented at the SES 2020 online conference, 4 July 2020.