The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment

1. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Rachel L. Yang, BA, Jarrod D. Predina, BA, Daniel A. Hashimoto, BA, Nina M. Bowens, MD, Elizabeth M. Sonnenberg, BA, Emily C. Cleveland, BA, Charlotte Lawson, BA, Jon B. Morris, MD, Rachel R. Kelz, MD MSCE Department of Surgery, Perelman School of Medicine

2. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Disclosure The authors have no financial interests to disclose, however the virtual patient modules were developed using the DISCOURSE, LLC platform

3. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Background • The virtual patient is an interactive web-based educational tool relatively new to undergraduate medical education • Almost all virtual patient systems have been applied to non-surgical fields • The formal assessment of student proficiency in clinical reasoning has been limited by the lack of appropriate tools • We sought to develop and evaluate a new virtual patient platform designed for surgical education

4. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Specific Aims and Study Design • AIM 1:To test the feasibility of developing virtual patient modules targeted for use in the surgical clerkship • Development of three distinct modules • AIM 2: To determine the usability of the virtual patient platform and students’ opinions regarding its use as an educational tool • Student completion of a 16-item survey following module completion • AIM 3:To examine the potential use of the virtual patient as an adjunct to assessment tools • We described the mean virtual patient performance score and the mean NBME surgery shelf score for the eligible student cohort

5. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Module Development • Case-specific learning objectives • Clinical scenario and key clinical decisions • Multiple choice and free-response questions • Branching decision trees • Scoring algorithm based on appropriateness of clinical decisions • Conversion into web-based framework

6. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Virtual Patient Interface

7. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Median Student Ratings of Interface Usability Poor  Excellent

8. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Median Ratings of Virtual Patients as an Educational Tool DisagreeAgree VPs, virtual patients

9. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Mean Virtual Patient and Shelf Performance

10. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Summary & Future Directions • Virtual patient case development was feasible • Students reported the virtual patient platform was usable and an appealing adjunct to current medical education tools • We plan to develop more virtual patients cases • Assessment of clinical efficiency and cost-effectiveness • Begin validating characteristics of the platform as an assessment tool • Expert and novice testing

11. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Thank You • Research Team • -Agnew Education Committee • -Rachel Kelz, MD MSCE • Platform Development • -Richard Bell, MD • Penn Department of Surgical Education • Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

12. Questions?

13. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Example Decision Tree

14. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Case-specific Learning Objectives

15. The Virtual Patient Pilot: Testing a New Tool for Undergraduate Surgical Education and Assessment Individual Case Performance