The Virtual Patient – Innovative Learning Approached for Medical Education

On June 27 – 28, The Federation of American Scientists’ Learning Federation Project brought together educational researchers, medical practitioners and video game developers for a workshop at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, to discuss trends in simulation –based education and training programs in medicine and how best to make these learning systems easier to build.

The workshop, sponsored by Laerdel Medical Corporation and the Microsoft Corporation, will culminate in a research plan for the next generation of medical simulations and how to integrate advanced learning technologies into these systems for instructional use.

According to Kay Howell, Vice President of Information Technologies at FAS and Project Director of The Learning Federation, the workshop marks the first time experts in health education, medical training, information technology and the learning sciences met in a balanced representation from industry, post secondary institutions and federal program managers.

The generation of intelligent patient case scenarios is one of the primary research challenges in designing simulation-based practice and assessment environments. The long-term goal is to generate on-the-fly case scenarios tailored to meet specific learning objectives and personalized to the user. The research plan will define a framework to identify the features of video games and simulations that make them good learning tools and establish guidelines for linking scenario features with individual needs.

The Virtual Patient research plan will borrow from the successful approach of flight and military simulation-based training, as well as from traditional medical education approaches. Workshop participants identified challenges to engage, motivate and reward the student, along with meaningful and frequent feedback and coaching, as key capabilities that are highly desired for future learning systems.

The Virtual Patient research plan, or road map, will be published this fall and will be used to update The Learning Federation’s comprehensive research road map for learning science and technology (www.fas.org/learnfed/).