Telehealth has become an increasingly important part of health care delivery, with a dramatic rise in telehealth visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth visits will continue to be a part of care delivery after the pandemic subsides, and it is important that medical students receive training in telehealth skills to meet emerging telehealth competencies. This paper describes strategies for successfully integrating medical students into telehealth visits in the ambulatory setting based on existing literature and the extensive experience of the authors teaching and learning in the telehealth environment.

Mean (SD) RSV scores during the COVID-19 era were 53.5 (12.4) in the United States and 39.0 (10.9) in the United Kingdom, compared with pre-COVID-19 scores of 40.6 (14.3) and 31.2 (10.9), respectively. We found a 239% increase in home birth-related RSVs in the United States (relative risk [RR], 3.39; 95% CI, 2.48-2.64; P < .001) and a 53% increase in the United Kingdom (RR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.06-2.21; P = .02) (Figure). Higher RSVs were noted in the earlier months of the pandemic, and 8 of 9 (89%) and 6 of 9 (67%) of the weeks with the highest volume of searches (ie, >90th percentile RSV score) in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively, occurred between March and May 2020. DiscussionIn this study, we identified increased public interest in home birth during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and the United Kingdom, most prominently during the early months of the outbreak. This increased information-seeking parallels media coverage and anecdotal reports from home birth practitioners, who have noted heightened demand for home birth services. While the largest spike in searches for home birth information occurred early in the pandemic, RSVs have persisted at levels greater than prepandemic trends. The association was more prominent in the Figure.

Two studies investigated situational and dispositional influences on rejection of a sleep deprivation warning message for young adults. The hassle of protection (Study 1) and the self-relevance of the problem (Study 2) were manipulated; the disposition to use denial (threat orientation) for warning messages was measured. In both studies, it was found that both dispositional denial and the situational manipulation (more protection-hassle or self-relevance) showed at least one denial effect by reducing perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, or credibility. Indirect (mediational) effects were tested with the bootstrap method. In Study 1, judgments of credibility and severity mediated the effects of the hassle manipulation and denial orientation on message outcomes. In Study 2, credibility mediated the effects of the self-relevance manipulation and denial orientation on message outcomes of intentions to change and priority given to sleep. These studies show that both situational and dispositional sources of denial work in similar ways by lowering key message judgments and that the lower judgments lead to less priority given to a health risk and lower intentions to protect oneself.

UNSTRUCTURED Telehealth has become an increasingly important part of health care delivery, with a dramatic rise in telehealth visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth visits will continue to be a part of care delivery after the pandemic subsides, and it is important that medical students receive training in telehealth skills to meet emerging telehealth competencies. This paper describes strategies for successfully integrating medical students into telehealth visits in the ambulatory setting based on existing literature and the extensive experience of the authors teaching and learning in the telehealth environment.