Language, culture and international exchange of virtual patients

Abstract

BackgroundLanguage and cultural differences could be a limiting factor for the international exchange of Virtual Patients (VPs), especially for small countries and languages of limited circulation. Our research evaluated whether it would be feasible to develop a VP based educational program in our Romanian institution, with cases in English and developed in a non-Romanian setting.MethodThe participants in the research comprised 4th year Romanian medical students from the Faculty of Medicine in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, with previous training exclusively in Romanian, good English proficiency and no experience with VPs. The students worked on eight VPs in two identical versions, Romanian and English. The first group (2010) of 136 students worked with four VPs developed in Cluj and the second group (2011) of 144 students with four VPs originally developed at an US University. Every student was randomly assigned two different VPs, one in Romanian and another in English. Student activity throughout the case, the diagnosis, therapeutic plan and diagnosis justification were recorded. We also compared student performance on the two VPs versions, Romanian and English and the student performance on the two sets of cases, originally developed in Romania, respectively USA.ResultsWe found no significant differences between the students’ performance on the Romanian vs. English version of VPs. Regarding the students’ performance on the two sets of cases, in those originally developed in Romania, respectively in the USA, we found a number of statistically significant differences in the students’ activity through the cases. There were no statistically significant differences in the students’ ability to reach the correct diagnosis and therapeutic plan.ConclusionThe development of our program with VPs in English would be feasible, cost-effective and in accordance with the globalization of medical education.

Family Medicine Education with Virtual Patients: a Qualitative Study

“…A limiting aspect of VP use in non-English speaking countries might also be the cultural adaptation and language barrier of the international (in our case US VP cases). Students pointed out that the language barrier was present, yet also Muntean (2013) points out that learning outcomes do not differ greatly when they compared international VP cases and domestic (Romania) patient cases ( 16 ). Therefore, the development of a tutor assisted, course integrated model of international virtual patient cases could enhance student learning and needs to be further explored.…”

Cultural Competency Interventions During Medical School: a Scoping Review and Narrative Synthesis

“…Twenty articles identified interventions that addressed specific racial/ethnic populations without involving travel abroad. [67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] Seventeen of the 20 interventions were developed at US medical schools, while the remainder were from New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Romania, Germany, and Russia. Nine articles focused on populations that were indigenous to the study's country of origin.…”

Virtual patients as a format for simulation learning in continuing medical education (review article)

“…Однако коллектив сотрудников медицинского факультета румынского университета не обнаружил статистически значимых различий в способности студентов поставить корректный диагноз и составить план терапевтического лечения для четырех идентичных ВП на румынском (136 студентов) и английском (144 студента) языках. Включение в программу румынского медицинского вуза ВП на английском языке авторы считают приемлемым и ýкономически обоснованным вариантом глобализации медицинского образования [54].…”