Ward rounds are back on for one lucky group of medical students, after their university developed telehealth for medical education by live-streaming patient rounds.

The move was the brainchild of a clinical teaching team from the University of Newcastle at John Hunter Hospital, NSW, who reported the successful trial of their technology-based teaching in the Medical Journal of Australia.

The idea came after it was recognised it could be several months before medical students, who usually spend 50% of their time attached to wards, clinics and operating rooms, would return to the hospitals.

Unlike traditional rounds, where a group of students trail after clinicians, just one medical student logs in via a mobile phone to watch the live-streamed patient visits on the obstetrics and gynaecology ward, they write.