Small group teaching: clinical correlation with a human patient simulator.
The popularity of the problem-based learning paradigm has stimulated new interest in small group, interactive teaching techniques. Medical educators of physiology have long recognized the value of such methods, using animal-based laboratories to demonstrate difficult physiological principles. Due to ethical and other concerns, a replacement of this teaching tool has been sought. Here, the author describes the use of a full-scale human patient simulator for such a workshop. The simulator is a life-size mannequin with physical findings (palpable pulses, breath/heart sounds, blinking eyes, etc.) and sophisticated mechanical and software models of the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems. It can be connected to standard physiological monitors to reproduce a realistic clinical environment. In groups of 10, first-year medical students explore Starling's law of the heart, the physiology of the Valsalva maneuver, and the function of the baroreceptor in a clinically realistic context using the simulator. With the use of a novel pre-/postworkshop assessment instrument that included student confidence in their answers, student confidence improved for all questions and survey items following the simulator session (P < 0.0001). The students give these laboratory exercises uniformly superior evaluations with > 85% of the students rating the workshop "very good" or "excellent".
Euliano
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Department of Anesthesiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida 32610-0254, USA. tammy@anest4.anest.ufl.edu
D017704:Baroreflex; D004493:Education; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008348:Manikins; D016544:Patient Simulation; D010827:Physiology / Q000193:education*; D018794:Problem-Based Learning / Q000379:methods*; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology; D014636:Valsalva Maneuver