Teamwork in the time of COVID-19

Abstract

Strong and effective clinical teamwork has been shown to improve medical outcomes and reduce medical errors. Incorporating didactic and clinical activities into undergraduate medical education in which students work in teams will develop skills to prepare them to work in clinical teams as they advance through their education and careers. At the Yale School of Medicine, we foster the development of team skills in the classroom through team-based learning (TBL) and in clinical settings with the Interprofessional Longitudinal Clinical Experience (ILCE). Both TBL and ILCE require students work in close physical proximity. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to immediately adapt our in-person activities to an online format and then develop clinical and interprofessional experiences that adhere to social distancing guidelines. Here we describe our approaches to solving these problems and the experiences of our students and faculty.