The American Physiological Society Press Release | READ FULL ARTICLE

Bethesda, Md. (February 14, 2018)—Medical students in India are using computer-simulated virtual patients (SVPs) as a learning tool for clinical skills and are becoming more enthusiastic about their studies. SVPs allow students to interact with and perform procedures on pretend patients that are programmed to exhibit symptoms of illness or injury. The article is published in Advances in Physiology Education.

Due to a tight program structure, medical schools in India typically do not expose students to real patients until the second year of study. Text-based cases teach clinical reasoning in the first year but do not provide the opportunity to practice clinical examination or develop the skills to take patient medical histories. In addition, the lack of early clinical exposure has been shown to reduce students’ enthusiasm when they begin clinical studies. Faculty at University College of Medical Sciences in Delhi, India, developed two SVPs to “provide an opportunity to engage students in [case-based learning] with greater frequency” and improve learning in endocrine physiology. READ MORE…