CONTEXT In the early months of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) (Baltimore, Maryland) leadership reached out to faculty to develop and implement virtual clinical clerkships after all in-person medical student clinical experiences were suspended. OBJECTIVE To develop and implement a digital slide-based virtual surgical pathology clinical elective to meet the demand for meaningful and robust virtual clinical electives in response to the temporary suspension of in-person clinical rotations at JHUSOM. DESIGN The Virtual Surgical Pathology (VSP) elective was modeled after the in-person surgical pathology elective, to include virtual previewing and sign-out with standardized cases supplemented by synchronous and asynchronous pathology educational content. RESULTS Validation of existing web communications technology and slide scanning systems was performed by feasibility testing. Curriculum development included drafting of course objectives and syllabus, Blackboard course site design, electronic-lecture creation, communications with JHUSOM leadership, scheduling, and slide curation. Subjectively, the weekly schedule averaged 35-40 hours to asynchronous, synchronous, and independent content, approximately 10-11 hours of which were synchronous. As of February 2021, VSP has hosted 35 JHUSOM and eight non-JHUSOM students, who have provided positive subjective and objective course feedback. CONCLUSIONS The Johns Hopkins VSP elective provided meaningful clinical experience to 43 students in a time of immense online education need. Added benefits of implementing VSP included increased medical student exposure to pathology as a medical specialty and demonstration of how digital slides have the potential to improve standardization of the pathology clerkship curriculum.
Continuing Undergraduate Pathology Medical Education in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Global Pandemic: The Johns Hopkins Virtual Surgical Pathology Clinical Elective.