This study aimed to report the changes made to ENT placements across the UK in response to the pandemic and their impact on student experience.

A questionnaire eliciting how ENT placements were provided before and after coronavirus disease 2019 was disseminated amongst Student and Foundation Doctors in Otolaryngology representatives.

Thirty-eight respondents from 27 medical schools across the UK completed the survey (response rate of 90 per cent). Twenty-nine of the 38 respondents (76 per cent) reported a change in ENT placements in response to the pandemic. Six of the 38 students (16 per cent) remained satisfied with their ENT placements, as compared to 12 students prior to the pandemic (32 per cent).

There is considerable variability in how medical schools responded to the pandemic. Most medical schools placed students into smaller groups, with less direct contact in the hospital. These changes resulted in lower student satisfaction. The increased emphasis on e-learning underscores the need for high quality e-learning materials to promote learning throughout the pandemic and in the future.

To describe a method of using real patients in teaching ENT to undergraduates and to examine whether being a case patient affected patient satisfaction.

In a cross-sectional study, 68 teaching-involved patients (case patients) with a suspected common ENT illness and 68 matched (in terms of age, sex and region of complaint) control patients evaluated the health service and their encounter with the physician. The students saw the case patients first independently and then saw the patient with the teacher physician. The controls were treated in a normal way.

Fifty-eight case patients (84 per cent) and 65 control patients (95 per cent) answered the questionnaire. The median duration of the visit was significantly longer for the case patients than the controls (115 vs 60 minutes). Almost all patients in both groups graded the overall quality of the health service, and the variables describing various aspects of the setting and the encounter with the physician, as either good or excellent.

Patients who took part in the undergraduate teaching of ENT diseases were equally content with their primary visit as the control patients, even though their visit took a markedly longer time.