Classroom teaching with simulated patients during COVID-19: The communication skills course in the second year of the model medical curriculum HannibaL

Objective: In the spring of 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the question arose at Hannover Medical School as to how simulated patients (SP) could still be utilized in the communication course that is part of the module “Diagnostic methods” taught in the second year of the model medical curriculum known as HannibaL Methods: This short report summarizes the process of implementing the utilization of SP in analog classroom teaching and describes the relevant results on the concluding Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in comparison to the previous year Results: Overall, the analog SP deployments were practicable under local conditions and in compliance with precautionary measures to curb the risk of infection, whereby the OSCE scores did not deviate signific-antly from those in the prior year Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic and perhaps other epidem-ics as well, it will continue to be important in the future to make locally adapted, purpose-oriented, and preventively effective decisions regarding university didactics in undergraduate studies © 2020 von Lengerke et al