Advising Medical Students during COVID-19: The Case for a Single Emergency Medicine Rotation for All

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the usual approach to exploring and applying into emergency medicine (EM) for medical students. On March 17th, 2020, the American Association of Medical Colleges issued guidance strongly suggesting that medical students be removed from direct patient care. Many medical schools removed medical students from clerkships and postponed hosting visiting medical students indefinitely. An informal query of EM clerkship directors on the Clerkship Directors in Emergency Medicine (CDEM) list-serve confirmed this trend in EM, with a clear majority of respondents pulling their students from clinical rotations and halting visiting student rotations.