Final-year medical student Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine synchronous summative tele-assessments during a COVID-19 Delta-variant stay-at-home lockdown

Australas Psychiatry. 2022 Aug;30(4):564-569. doi: 10.1177/10398562221077885. Epub 2022 Feb 28.

Abstract

Objective: We describe the planning, process and evaluation of final-year Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine summative assessments in a four-year graduate medical degree program, during a COVID-19 Delta-variant public health stay-at-home lockdown.

Conclusions: We conducted separate written and clinical synchronous (real-time simultaneous) tele-assessments. We used online assessment technology with students, examiners and simulated patients, all in different physical locations. Medical students' examination performance showed a good range. This was comparable to other discipline stations, and performance in previous years. There was no differential performance of students through the day of the assessments.

Keywords: COVID-19 lockdown; addiction medicine; medical education; online assessment; psychiatry; summative assessment.

MeSH terms

  • Addiction Medicine* / education
  • COVID-19*
  • Communicable Disease Control
  • Education, Medical, Undergraduate*
  • Educational Measurement
  • Humans
  • Psychiatry* / education
  • Students, Medical*