Twelve Tips for Utilizing Virtual Patients to Teach Professionalism

Abstract

Professionalism is an essential element of healthcare professional curriculum. However, teaching professionalism is complex and requires engaging and effective strategies. Virtual patients, in the form of computer-generated simulated clinical scenarios, can be used as a strategy to teach professionalism. The use of virtual patients provides an interactive and accessible learning tool along with opportunities for repetitive practice. This paper proposes twelve tips for utilizing virtual patients to teach healthcare professionalism. These tips are based on an extensive review of the relevant literature and the author's experience. The application of these tips may facilitate teaching professionalism using virtual patients and improve learning and retention of information.

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

“…Советы, как развивать профессиональные компетенции врачей с помощью ВП, дают S. Murphy и соавт. (2016) [43]. Среди них использование в сценарии ВП профессиональных нюансов (информированное согласие, конфиденциальность и пр.…”

Application of virtual patients in undergraduate dental education

“…VPs that focus mainly on knowledge acquisition with respect to the codes of ethics, while more mature learners would benefit more from VPs that present situations in which there is no clear cut between correct and wrong answers, which could stimulate their reflection on the advantages and limitations of different courses of action (Murphy S, Imam B, & Whitehouse L, 2016).…”

“…Others advocated that the VPs should not be designed to focus directly on professionalism dilemmas, as the dilemmas have to be incorporated in the whole scenario as one step toward the comprehensive treatment of the patient. In other words, if the learning objective of a VP is to show the student how to consent a patient before surgery, the consenting process should be incorporated in the VP as a step in the treatment plan rather than being the main focus (Murphy S et al, 2016). The second feature in the VP design for professionalism is about the nature of the ending.…”