Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been a great challenge to medical education, nonetheless it also offered medical schools an opportunity to incorporate a developing technology to address the accessibility of health services in the form of telemedicine. However, the success of any new technology would depend on factors of the users who engage in it. Objective: To determine the perceptions, attitudes, and willingness of fourth-year medical students enrolled in the Cebu Institute of Medicine for the school year 2020-2021 on CIM CMSS – DOH telemedicine program Methods: This was an analytical, cross-sectional study design conducted to 150 fourth year medical students of the Cebu Institute of Medicine from June to July 2021 using a validated, researcher-made electronic questionnaire Results: The study had a response rate of 100 percent. Gender, pre-medical degrees and previous experience with telemedicine did not differ significantly in terms of their perception, attitude and willingness toward the telemedicine program. However, those medical students who are fluent in Tagalog have better attitudes toward it. A positive linear correlation also existed between the respondents’ perception scores and attitude scores, as well as between their perception scores and willingness scores indicating that better perception towards the program indicated better attitude and willingness. Conclusions The result of this study can be used to address the limitations perceived and demonstrated by medical students during the pandemic and how telemedicine bridged the gap in medical education. This can be the basis of adding telemedicine in the current medical curriculum, which would translate to future graduates who are able to provide holistic healthcare by adopting new technological strategies.
Telemedicine ; Education, Medical ; COVID-19