Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder...and the Clerkship Harder! Balancing Clerkship Student Absences with Wellness and Assessment

Clerkship students have multiple goals and objectives to fulfill during their rotation with the aim of strengthening clinical skills and improving overall knowledge. The ability to achieve these goals may be negatively impacted by excessive student absences. There appears to be rising absences for which clerkship directors have been tasked with individualizing curriculum and adjusting assessment to meet the needs of students. In addition, there is a national awareness of the need to address student wellness and decrease burnout. Potential curricular clerkship tools to assist students include clearly defined absence and make-up policies, predefined online make-up assignments, clinical make-up days during or after the clerkship rotation, and competency-based assessments. These resources can facilitate educational consistency across diverse learning sites to support universal curricular objectives, and when applied in a standardized fashion, can mitigate bias and facilitate student well-being. Centralized tracking can identify students at risk across clerkships who may not be able to achieve competency due to recurrent absences. The purpose of this workshop is to engage in a discussion about identifying best practices to support students through clerkship absences to meet the learning objectives of the course. Beginning with an audience survey regarding challenges related to student absences, presenters will identify common themes and share several institutional policies and practices. In small groups, participants will discuss case scenarios to identify challenges and brainstorm potential strategies in managing absences and supporting students towards making up missed time. Highlights will be shared in a large group debrief.