Creation and Pilot-testing of Virtual Patients for Learning Oncologic Emergency Management

Fawaz, Z.S.; Posel, Nancy; Royal-Preyra, Benjamin; Khriguian, Julia; Alfieri, Joanne

doi:10.7759/cureus.6206

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In managing oncological emergencies, pilot testing of VPs was performed to improve learner skills [ 2 ]. There was an increase in the mean test result from 58 to 86% in the pretest and posttest, respectively.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Virtual patients versus standardized patients for improving clinical reasoning skills in ophthalmology residents. A randomized controlled trial

Malik,

Mahboob,

Khan

et al. 2024

BMC Med Educ

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Background History taking and clinical reasoning are important skills that require knowledge, cognition and meta-cognition. It is important that a trainee must experience multiple encounters with different patients to practice these skills. However, patient safety is also important, and trainees are not allowed to handle critically ill patients. To address this issue, a randomized controlled trial was conducted to determine the effectiveness of using Virtual Patients (VP) versus Standardized Patients (SP) in acquiring clinical reasoning skills in ophthalmology postgraduate residents. Methods Postgraduate residents from two hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan, were randomized to either the VP group or the SP group and were exposed to clinical reasoning exercise via the VP or SP for 30 min after the pretest. This was followed by a posttest. One month after this activity, a follow-up posttest was conducted. The data were collected and analysed using IBM-SPSS version 25. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to track the effect of learning skills over time. Results The mean age of the residents was 28.5 ± 3 years. The male to female ratio was 1:1.1. For the SP group, the mean scores were 12.6 ± 3.08, 16.39 ± 3.01 and 15.39 ± 2.95, and for the VP group, the mean scores were 12.7 ± 3.84, 16.30 ± 3.19 and 15.65 ± 3.18 for the pretest, posttest and follow-up posttest, respectively (p value < 0.00). However, the difference between the VP and SP groups was not statistically significant (p = 0.896). Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference between the VP and SP groups regarding the retention of clinical reasoning ability. In terms of learning gain, compared with the VP group, the SP group had a score of 51.46% immediately after clinical reasoning exercise as compared to VP group, in which it was 49.1%. After one month, it was 38.01 in SP and 40.12% in VP group. Conclusion VPs can be used for learning clinical reasoning skills in postgraduate ophthalmology residents in a safe environment. These devices can be used repeatedly without any risk to the real patient. Although similarly useful, SP is limited by its nonavailability for repeated exercises.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The clinician should make differential diagnoses and develop treatment plans for patients in a safe environment. Thus, the VP can be used as a good tool for assessing clinical reasoning skills [ 2 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%