Enhancing primary care clerkships with virtual patients

Abstract

Background: Virtual patients, computer-assisted patient scenarios, have been used in different medical disciplines over several years. Researchers have already gained knowledge on how it helps foster clinical thinking, fills knowledge gaps and enables patient management. Nonetheless, despite these advances in knowledge, the use of virtual patients in Family Medicine education remains limited. Objectives: We point out the current knowledge, benefits and potential ways of using virtual patients in the Family Medicine setting. Discussion: Virtual patients can be used as a preparation tool for clinical clerkships as well as learning about patient treatment not usually encountered in every day practice. Regardless of the means of implementation, students benefit from acquiring skills through multifaceted virtual patients. We firmly believe that, when intelligently applied, virtual patients can enhance and improve future Family Medicine education.

Keywords:

• Virtual patients
• medical education
• undergraduate
• distance education
• clinical clerkship

Acknowledgement

This debate is a product of the research conducted as part of the Medical faculty in Maribor, Dean’s research competition.