This is an outdated version published on 2022-04-05. Read the most recent version.

Medical Student Teleconferencing Experiences and Financial Status: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2022.1016

Keywords:

Financial stress, Internet, Medical education, Medical students, Videoconferencing

Abstract

Background: Teleconferencing issues may affect the online experiences of medical students during medical education and residency interview evaluation. Yet, teleconferencing experiences among medical students with varying financial status have not been examined.

Methods: Cross-sectional study based on a single-institution survey of fourth-year University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) medical students on self-reported financial status, teleconferencing issues experienced, preparations made for online residency interviews, and satisfaction with teleconferencing equipment. Responses of students who self-identified as financially disadvantaged were compared to those of students without financial hardship using Fisher’s exact tests.

Results: Of 268 students invited to complete the survey, 67 responded (25%), and 27 (40%) of respondents identified as financially disadvantaged. A majority of students reported problems with internet connectivity (75%) and audio quality (51%). Nearly one-third of students (30%) reported plans to improve their internet connectivity for online residency interviews. Of respondents, 58% were satisfied with the quality of their teleconferencing equipment. Students dissatisfied with their equipment were more likely to report audio problems (68% vs. 38%, P=0.03) and internet connectivity issues (89% vs. 64%, P=0.01). Financial status was not significantly associated with teleconferencing issues, device age, satisfaction with teleconferencing equipment, or the amount that students would be willing to spend on acquiring new equipment.

Conclusion: Teleconferencing issues, particularly audio and internet problems, are highly prevalent among fourth-year medical students at UCLA and are associated with dissatisfaction with teleconferencing equipment but not self-reported financial status. The influence of teleconferencing issues on student evaluation outcomes warrants further investigation.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

The Coalition for Physician Accountability. Final Report and Recommendations for Medical Education Institutions of LCME-Accredited, U.S. Osteopathic, and Non-U.S. Medical School Applicants. Available from: https://www.aamc.org/system/files/2020-05/covid19_Final_Recommendations_Executive%20Summary_Final_05112020.pdf. Last updated May 11, 2020; cited Dec 10, 2020.

Association of American Medical Colleges. Virtual Interviews: Tips for Medical School Applicants. Available from: https://www.aamc.org/media/44841/download. Last updated May 14, 2020; cited Dec 1, 2020.

American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. Virtual Interviewing. Available from: https://www.aacom.org/match/virtual-interviewing; publication date unavailable; cited Dec 6, 2020.

Williams K, Kling JM, Labonte HR, Blair JE. Videoconference Interviewing: Tips for Success. J Grad Med Educ. 2015 Sep;7(3):331.

Davis MG, Haas MRC, Gottlieb M, House JB, Huang RD, Hopson LR. Zooming In Versus Flying Out: Virtual Residency Interviews in the Era of COVID-19. AEM Educ Train. 2020 Jun 27;4(4):443–6.

Couch KA, Fairlie RW, Xu H. Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment. J Public Econ. 2020 Dec;192:104287.

Bambra C, Riordan R, Ford J, Matthews F. The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2020 Nov;74(11):964–8.

Ambrose AJH. Inequities During COVID-19. Pediatrics. 2020 Aug;146(2):e20201501.

McColl R, Michelotti M. Sorry, could you repeat the question? Exploring video-interview recruitment practice in HRM. Hum Resour Manag J. 2019 Aug 21;29(4):637–56.

DeGroot T, Gooty J. Can Nonverbal Cues be Used to Make Meaningful Personality Attributions in Employment Interviews? J Bus Psychol. 2009 Jun 1;24(2):179–92.

Naumann LP, Vazire S, Rentfrow P, Gosling S. Personality Judgments Based on Physical Appearance. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2009 Dec;35(12):1661-71.

Makdisi G, Takeuchi T, Rodriguez J, Rucinski J, Wise L. How We Select Our Residents—A Survey of Selection Criteria in General Surgery Residents. J Surg Educ. 2011 Jan 1;68(1):67–72.

Nallasamy S, Uhler T, Nallasamy N, Tapino PJ, Volpe NJ. Ophthalmology Resident Selection: Current Trends in Selection Criteria and Improving the Process. Ophthalmology. 2010 May 1;117(5):1041–7.

Martin M, Salzberg L. Resident characteristics to evaluate during recruitment and interview: a Delphi study. Educ Prim Care. 2017 Mar 4;28(2):81–5.

Katzung KG, Ankel F, Clark M, Lawson LE, DeBlieux PMC, Cheaito MA, et al. What Do Program Directors Look for in an Applicant? J Emerg Med. 2019 May 1;56(5):e95–101.

Stephenson-Famy A, Houmard BS, Oberoi S, Manyak A, Chiang S, Kim S. Use of the Interview in Resident Candidate Selection: A Review of the Literature. J Grad Med Educ. 2015 Dec;7(4):539.

Burkhardt JC. What Can We Learn From Resident Selection Interviews? J Grad Med Educ. 2015 Dec;7(4):673–5.

Fiechter JL, Fealing C, Gerrard R, Kornell N. Audiovisual quality impacts assessments of job candidates in video interviews: Evidence for an AV quality bias. Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2018 Dec 7;3(1):47.

Borkenau P, Liebler A. Observable Attributes as Manifestations and Cues of Personality and Intelligence. J Pers. 1995 Jan;63(1):1–25.

Zaki MM, Nahed BV. Using Virtual Interviews in Residency Selection Beyond COVID-19. Acad Med. 2020 Nov;95(11):e7-8.

Vining CC, Eng OS, Hogg ME, Schuitevoerder D, Silverman RS, Yao KA, et al. Virtual Surgical Fellowship Recruitment During COVID-19 and Its Implications for Resident/Fellow Recruitment in the Future. Ann Surg Oncol. 2020 May; 18;1–5.

Wolff M, Burrows H. Planning for Virtual Interviews: Residency Recruitment During a Pandemic. Acad Pediatr. 2021 Jan-Feb;21(1):24–31.

Ballejos MP, Oglesbee S, Hettema J, Sapien R. An equivalence study of interview platform: Does videoconference technology impact medical school acceptance rates of different groups? Adv in Health Sci Educ. 2018 Aug 1;23(3):601–10.

Nwora C, Allred DB, Verduzco-Gutierrez M. Mitigating Bias in Virtual Interviews for Applicants Who are Underrepresented in Medicine. J Natl Med Assoc. 2021 Feb;113(1):74-6.

Hagedorn JCI, Chen J, Weiss WM, Fredrickson SW, Faillace JJ. Interviewing in the Wake of COVID-19: How Orthopaedic Residencies, Fellowships, and Applicants Should Prepare for Virtual Interviews. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2021 Apr 1;29(7):271-7.

UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. DGSOM Student Computing Standards: Class of 2022. Available from: https://medschool.ucla.edu/workfiles/site-Current/Resources/Computing/MinComputerClassOf2022.pdf; publication date unavailable; cited Jan 25, 2021.

Hecht J. The bandwidth bottleneck that is throttling the Internet. Nature News. 2016;536(7615):139.

Highspeedinternet.com. Your Guide to Internet Service During New Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak. Available from: https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/the-consumers-guide-to-internet-speed; last updated Mar 25, 2020; cited Jan 25, 2021.

Lai J, Widmar NO. Revisiting the Digital Divide in the COVID?19 Era. Appl Econ Perspect Policy. 2021 Mar;43(1):458-64.

Downloads

Published

2022-01-22 — Updated on 2022-04-05

Versions

How to Cite

Huang, I. A., Dhindsa, Y., Chen, A. J., Wu, J., Wagner, J. P., Tillou, A., & Chen, F. (2022). Medical Student Teleconferencing Experiences and Financial Status: A Cross-Sectional Survey. International Journal of Medical Students, 10(1), 56–62. https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2022.1016

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Original Article

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Ivy A. Huang, Yasmeen Dhindsa, Alina J. Chen, James Wu, Justin P. Wagner, Areti Tillou, Formosa Chen

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
    1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site; with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
    2. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
    4. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
    5. The Author represents and warrants that:
      1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
      2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
      3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
      4. the Work has not previously been published;
      5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
      6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
    6. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from the Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.

Enforcement of copyright

The IJMS takes the protection of copyright very seriously.

If the IJMS discovers that you have used its copyright materials in contravention of the license above, the IJMS may bring legal proceedings against you seeking reparation and an injunction to stop you using those materials. You could also be ordered to pay legal costs.

If you become aware of any use of the IJMS' copyright materials that contravenes or may contravene the license above, please report this by email to contact@ijms.org

 

Infringing material

If you become aware of any material on the website that you believe infringes your or any other person's copyright, please report this by email to contact@ijms.org