Table 4.

vOSCE survey free response questions and identified student answer themes.

Questions and identified response themes	Selected quotes
What was most successful about the session?
1. Increased comfort and familiarity with the virtual encounter format.	“Having to interact with the standardized patient virtually and feeling comfortable as the session went on”.
	“Familiarizing with the first-time awkward feeling of speaking with patients through a screen”.
	“Getting comfortable with the format”.
2. Opportunity to experience Ob/Gyn patient encounters during COVID-19.	“To be able to interview a patient with a gyn complaint since we weren’t able to do so in person”.
	“It provided me with the ability to practice history taking in a gyn encounter, which I hadn't had the entire rotation”.
3. Collaboration with peers.	“Having the chance to do a virtual interview and having another student to discuss the note with”.
	“I feel like getting to work in tandem with someone else and see how they apply clinical reasoning skills helped me to improve my own note-writing and differential diagnosis skills”.
What was most challenging about the session?
1. Technical difficulties/adjusting to a virtual format.	“Technical difficulties and lag”.
	“I had some internet issues initially, definitely flustered me a bit”.
2. The virtual physical exam.	“Having to do the physical examination by asking questions was a bit hard to navigate”.
	“Asking questions about the components of the physical exam, as opposed to doing the actual maneuvers”.
3. Difficulty connecting with patients given limited ability to read body language and communicate nonverbally.	“Not being able to express appropriate empathy or read the patient's body language”.
	“Difficult to adjust to being on a virtual platform in terms of showing empathy and utilizing communication skills”.
	“Not having the body language as part of communication”.
What were my top takeaways from this session?
1. The vOSCE was helpful for practicing Ob/Gyn history taking and developing a differential diagnosis.	“Very helpful to have some communication with a ‘patient’ during the course, given the circumstances”.
2. Ability to experience and practice using telemedicine.	“Greater comfort with telemedicine encounters”.
	“It was a really nice experience even though it’s new and nerve racking at first”.
3. Telemedicine is good tool for student learning.	“Telemedicine SPs are an effective way to teach students and can be very helpful”.
	“Telemedicine is an important tool in medicine”.
Practice with nonverbal communication.	“Rapport building and demonstrating empathy must be even more intentional on a virtual platform because subtleties can be missed”.
	“There is a different way of expressing empathy in these interactions”.
	“Communication is especially important when interactions are virtual”.

TEC: Telehealth Education Curriculum; vOSCE: virtual Objective Structured Clinical Encounter