ISRRT_COVID-19_book

clinical education for the medical and allied health students may lack actual exposure to the
clinical sites. Hence, clinical skills may be reduced or will not be fully achieved. With the
current technology used for online learning, the Radiologic Technology Program initiates the
utilization of these technologies to continue the Clinical Education Training Program in an
online mode. Additionally, to give a value-added approach to the Clinical Education Training
Program, the BSRT department adopted the Telepreceptorship model. This was integrated to
supplement the cognitive skills enhancement of the student interns with input directly from
the qualified radiologic technologists – giving the clinical knowledge they need through
teleteaching and mitigating the clinical/practical education dilemma.
The idea of an innovative strategy for the pandemic-challenged clinical education for
radiologic technology program came from the concept of telemedicine and telehealth. In
telehealth, the medical and allied health practitioners take advantage of technology such as
web conferencing in conducting medical assessments, education, and consultations with the
patients. This concept was adopted in line with the preceptorship model of teaching to come
up with a teleteaching approach which is the telepreceptorship.
As indicated by Mian & Khan 1 , the delivery of Teleteaching using technological devices on
hospital sites was seen to be effective in engaging students and contributes to improving core
competencies, medical knowledge, and overall learning. Furthermore, Teleteaching is a
potential alternative for clinical-based teaching during the pandemic 1 . Student and
preceptors can communicate without risking exposure to COVID-19 – not wasting PPE, no
frequent and mandatory RT-PCR/swab tests for the student interns during the internship
program.
As instruction delivery through the online mode became a huge challenge for educators, we
cannot deny that the theoretical or lecture component of the course can be easily
administered via web conferencing, may it be in a small class or a big lecture session. The
most challenging part is devising a way on how to continue the clinical education training
program or internship, because when an actual hospital duty or even limited face-to-face
encounter is not yet permitted by the regulatory body of Higher Education Institutions (HEI)
and local government authorities. Pre-pandemic, the students are deployed into the different
health institutions with facilities that offer different imaging and therapeutic radiological
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