The Role for Virtual Patients in the Future of Medical Education

Abstract

PerspectiveMuch has been written about the challenges facing the current medical education system in the United States. Medical knowledge is expanding rapidly, which demands not only more efficient teaching methods but also the teaching of knowledge management, yet lectures and book learning remain primary means of instruction in many medical schools. Much evidence shows the negative impact of the current educational model on student mental health, 2 and indirect evidence indicates that improving mental health and capturing intrinsic motivation will have a positive impact on learning.3 Additionally, although clinical reasoning is a cornerstone of medical practice, the continued problem of diagnostic error 4 suggests that medical education should focus more on the application of foundational knowledge in diverse contexts to foster both the development of diagnostic expertise and the acknowledgment of one's own limits. Further, legitimate concerns about medical error 5 call into question not only the quality of the health care system but also whether the contemporary U.S. system of medical education needs to better assess the competence of its graduates. The medical education community is working-across disciplines and across the continuum-to identify and implement strategies to improve educational outcomes 6 ; however, the current challenges will remain difficult to solve without a better understanding of the effectiveness of these new educational strategies.Just as a modern health care system is compelled to translate advances in the basic and clinical sciences into medical practice, a modern medical education system must translate advances in fields such as cognitive and educational psychology, education, the learning sciences, and educational technology into educational practice. The incorporation of technology into education offers the promise of addressing educational challenges in new ways. 7,8 Often, modern technologies offer more hope than actual solutions, and there is the potential for this to occur in the use of educational technology in medical education. Our aim with this Perspective is to suggest roles for a specific form of technologyenhanced education-virtual patients (VPs)-in addressing specific challenges facing medical education. We will do this by, first, describing what VPs are and their current roles in medical education and, then, proposing specific educational strategies for the use of VPs and the educational outcomes we believe VPs can facilitate. What Are VPs?Medical educators and others have defined "virtual patient" as "an interactive computer simulation of real-life clinical scenarios for the purpose of healthcare and medical training, education, or assessment" 9 or "a specific type of computer program that simulates reallife clinical scenarios [through which] learners emulate the roles of health care providers to obtain a history, conduct a physical exam, and make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions." 10 AbstractThe medical education community is working-across disciplines and ...

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation, a New Approach

“…Data derived from various health care disciplines have conclusively demonstrated that well-designed simulation exercises are able to provide students with instructions and guidance to perform better at later testing periods (Croffoot et al, 2010;Gurpinar et al, 2010;Wilkinson et al, 2014;Rosenman et al, 2015;Strombach et al, 2016;Lysak et al, 2018;Streilein et al, 2018). Training through simulation has also been demonstrated to lead to the development of better patient safety skills through effective interprofessional teamwork (Puertas et al, 2013;Hallin et al, 2015;Rosenman et al, 2015;Walker et al, 2016;Luthar, 2017;Tetenbaum-Novatt et al, 2018), one of the salient goals in health care education (Elkind, 2009;Zielezinski and Karlowski, 2015;Berman et al, 2016). A singular view expressed by all millennial health care students is that simulation training provided an opportunity to gain experience (Kirch and Ast, 2015;Bronson, 2016;Hennessy et al, 2016;Worly et al, 2018), and take responsibility for skills that were acquired during training (Croffoot et al, 2010;Luthar, 2017;Rowland and Kumagai, 2018;Sahoo andMohammed, 2018) Tackett et al, 2018).…”

The future of interpersonal skills development: Immersive virtual reality training with virtual humans

“…In educational science, IVR technology has been used and has shown promising results (Berman, Durning, Fischer, Huwendiek, & Triola, 2016;Lok et al, 2006). Mostly, the effect of virtual teachers (compared to real teachers) has been explored (Bailenson et al, 2008;Mikropoulos & Natsis, 2011).…”

Medical students' attitudes towards the use of virtual patients

“…According to educational theory, VPs promote deeper learning by placing an emphasis on active involvement, understanding and application of knowledge (Berman et al, ). This is in line with the findings (Sorgenfrei & Smolnik, ) reporting that when students are faced with individualized learning, this increases their learning interest as well as effort to study the material.…”