Human-Patient Simulators versus Case-Based Learning in Undergraduate Medical Students Training: A review of current evidence
Human-Patient Simulators versus Case-Based Learning in Undergraduate Medical Students Training: A review of current evidence
AmirAli Moodi Ghalibaf,1,*Alireza Raouf Sheibani,2Parsa Hasanabadi,3
1. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran. 2. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Science, Mashhad, Iran 3. Student Research Committee, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran.
Introduction: Today, medical education is rapidly evolving; therefore, new educational methods and technologies are required to adapt to the changes and improve the quality of training. Over the past decades, the role of simulation in medical education is increasingly highlighted. Human-patient simulators are capable of both simulating real patient encounters and giving real-time, physio-logically accurate feedback; however, beyond their advantages, some medical education experts presented several disadvantages of the human-patient simulator training for undergraduate medical students. Therefore, the present study is designed to review the potential advantages and disadvantages of human-patient simulator training in comparison with case-based learning, as a standard method, in undergraduate medical students.
Methods: To determine the aims of the present study, a comprehensive systematic search was conducted through electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science with the keywords “Human patient simulation”, “Case-based learning”, “Medical education”, and other related MeSH terms up to August 2022. Original studies, review studies, and references of the review studies were included. Finally, the related studies which comprised Human-based simulators versus case-based learning in undergraduate medical students' training were reviewed.
Results: According to the reviewed studies, advantages of the human-patient simulator training can be summarized as addressing gaps in clinical conditions or settings, structured feedback, ability to practice skills/build confidence, filling the need for faculty/clinical site resources, patient safety and quality, controlled environment, and faster time to competence. On the other hand, being unrealistic, focusing on specific competencies, requiring full participation/engagement of learners, faculty resources, financial resources, spatial resources, and questionable return on investment are known as its major disadvantages. Moreover, some trial studies have investigated the efficacy of human-patient simulators versus case-based learning for undergraduate medical students. However, there were controversies in these studies. In detail, some studies have stated that the advantages of human-patient simulator learning were higher than superior to its disadvantages, while some others make the opposite statement. Furthermore, several studies did not find any significant different effects of human-patient simulator learning on undergraduate medical students' training. Based on what was stated in various studies, these different results could be due to the student topics, fields, quality of simulators, and attitude of the student to simulation-based learning.
Conclusion: Still, there are some gray areas about whether human-patient simulators are superior to case-based learning for undergraduate medical students, or not. It seems that further investigations are needed to resolve this ambiguity based on any faculty and its students' properties.
Keywords: Human Patient Simulation, Case-Based Learning, Medical Education