The COVID-19 pandemic caused dramatic interruptions and shifts to medical education, but students at schools nationwide responded by volunteering to support their physician educators on the frontlines. Relationships between student leaders, school administrators, and hospital administrators were key to the successful creation and organization of volunteer responses. This perspective piece from medical students, as well as hospital and medical school leadership, explores the evolving relationships in the creation of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School's Student COVID Team. By reflecting on choices made by each group in parallel points in time, the piece highlights where interests and actions aligned and diverged.

Précis: Telepresence robots (TR) present the versatility to effectively provide remote educational sessions for patients affected by glaucoma to improve disease knowledge. Given COVID-19’s effect on clinical practice, TR can maintain social distancing when educating patients. Purpose: TR are devices that allow remote users to have a mobile presence anywhere. We compared the effect of an education session given by an in-person educator versus a TR on glaucoma knowledge and identified factors that impact patient education. Methods: Eighty-five glaucoma patients were split into control, human, and TR groups. We measured glaucoma knowledge scores (KS) using the National Eye Institute’s Eye-Q Test. Human and TR groups had the education session with a human or TR followed by the questionnaire. The control group was administered the questionnaire without an education session. Treatment regimen recall (RR) >90% was considered a success. We used linear regression and binary logistic regression to determine variables that affect KS and RR, respectively. Results: Mean age was 58.3±2.8 years. 49% were female. Mean KS were 5.8±0.7 in the control group (n=31), 7.9±0.5 in the TR group (n=26), and 8.4±0.5 in the human group (n=28). Control participants had a lower mean KS than the human or TR groups (P<0.001). Having the education session (2.5, P<0.001), education greater than high school (0.8, P=0.016), and diabetes (−0.7, P=0.037) affected KS. Having diabetes (odds ratio=0.14, P=0.014) negatively affected RR. Having the education session may affect RR (odds ratio=5.47, P=0.07), warranting additional studies. Conclusions: Education sessions with a human and TR improved patients’ glaucoma KS. TRs may serve as an alternative to in-person education sessions and allow educators to safely and effectively educate patients remotely to adhere to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.