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. 2022 May 5:13:457-465.
doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S357514. eCollection 2022.

Teaching and Assessment of Medical Students During Complex Multifactorial Team-Based Tasks: The "Virtual on Call" Case Study

Elif Iliria Emin  1 , Ece Emin  2 , Alexios Bimpis  3 , Michael Pierides  4 , Aikaterini Dedeilia  5 , Zibad Javed  6 , Kathrine-Sofia Rallis  6 , Ferha Saeed  6 , Georgios Theophilou  7 , Apostolos Karkanevatos  8 , Dilek Kitapcioglu  9 , Mehmet Emin Aksoy  9 , Apostolos Papalois  10 , Michail Sideris  6
Affiliations

Teaching and Assessment of Medical Students During Complex Multifactorial Team-Based Tasks: The "Virtual on Call" Case Study

Elif Iliria Emin et al. Adv Med Educ Pract. .

Abstract

Abstract: Although considerable efforts have been made to incorporate simulation-based learning (SBL) in undergraduate medical education, to date, most of the medical school curricula still focus on pure knowledge or individual assessment of objective structured clinical examination skills (OSCE). To this end, we designed a case study named "iG4 (integrated generation 4) virtual on-call (iVOC)". We aimed to simulate an on-call shift in a high-fidelity virtual hospital setting in order to assess delegates' team-based performance on tasks related to patient handovers (prioritisation, team allocation).

Methods: A total of 41 clinical year medical students were split into 3 cohorts, each of which included 3 groups of 4 or 5 people. The groups consisted of a structured mix of educational and cultural backgrounds of students to achieve homogeneity. Each performing group received the handover for 5 patients in the virtual hospital and had to identify and deal with the acutely unwell ones within 15 minutes. We used TEAMTM tool to assess team-based performances.

Results: The mean handover performance was 5.44/10 ± 2.24 which was the lowest across any performance marker. The overall global performance across any team was 6.64/10 ± 2.11. The first rotating team's global performance for each cycle was 6.44/10 ± 2.01, for the second 7.89/10 ± 2.09 and for the third 6.78/10 ± 1.64 (p = 0.099 between groups).

Conclusion: This is one of the first reported, high-fidelity, globally reproducible SBL settings to assess the capacity of students to work as part of a multinational team, highlighting several aspects that need to be addressed during undergraduate studies. Medical schools should consider similar efforts with the aim to incorporate assessment frameworks for individual performances of students as part of a team, which can be a stepping-stone for enhancing safety in clinical practice.

Keywords: handover; high fidelity simulation; simulation based learning; team-based assessment; virtual on-call.

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Conflict of interest statement

Dr Aikaterini Dedeilia reports grants from World Health Organization – Health Workforce Department funding for research on the COVID-19 effects on health workforce education, outside the submitted work. The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study map.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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