Benda Shim, Douglas Brock, & Lindsay Jenkins.
Medical Teacher
March 2005, Vol. 27, Issue #2, pg. 175-177.
Review by: Linda Heun, Ph.D. <lheun@aacom.org>
The authors document the many current applications of on-line simulations and the lack of uniform criteria to evaluate them. This article describes the use of heuristic methods to explore and synthesize expert opinion in this area to produce 'easily applied evaluation criteria'. Twenty-two clinical educators who were interested in using online clinical simulations and had decision-making roles in the use of educational technology completed a survey addressing 16 elements that are typical of online simulations and nine of those educators participated in a detailed interview.
While all but three of the 16 surveyed features were considered 'essential' or 'very useful' by at least 75% of respondents, the four most often identified as essential were:
- opportunity to generate a differential diagnosis
- feedback on user's decisions
- opportunity to request tests and receive test results
- opportunity to practice patient history taking
Further, the following themes emerged from the interviews:
- simulations can be useful in exposing students to unusual cases
- simulations can be used to demonstrate issues involved in stressful situations
- simulations may be most valuable in teaching decision-making and cognitive skills
- simulations should be tailored to teach different aspects of medicine to different target audiences
- by allowing preceptors to analyze students decisions, they can both teach and assess
- simulation feedback should be detailed, flexible and focus on the therapeutic value of student choices.
The authors suggest addition research involving multiple institutions in order to generalize their results.
For more information about this article and author(s), visit the Medical Teacher website.
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