INTERGRATING
HIGH-FIDELITY PATIENT SIMULATION IN AN INTERNAL MEDICINE CLERKSHIP
CURRICULUM
Paul C. Ogden, M.D., Martha R. Howell,
M.Ed*., Department of
Internal Medicine, Scott & White/Texas A&M System Health Science
Center, Temple, Texas, 76504, USA.
During
the third and fourth year of
U.S.
medical school training, students are expected to develop the knowledge,
skills and attitudes necessary to care for acute medical illnesses. The
Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM) along with the Clerkship
Directors in Internal Medicine (CDIM) has published a national curriculum
model that outlines several suggested training problems. Using these
guidelines, students are expected to develop skills in several basic
procedures. However, during
the traditional Internal Medicine rotation it is not possible to ensure
that all students have comparable clinical experiences and develop similar
competencies. Therefore, a
curriculum was developed using high fidelity patient simulation for third
year medical students. The
internal medicine education office developed a 4 week curriculum using
medical simulation to teach basic medical procedures, management of acute
respiratory distress, and management of cardiac arrests to third year
medical students. The SGIM/CDIM
curriculum for 3rd and 4th year internal medicine
students was used to determine training problems and course objectives.
Faculty completed training in medical simulation during the fall
2004 semester. Therefore, only
half of the 2004-2005 class of third year medical students will be
afforded the simulation curriculum.
Such presented a unique opportunity for medical education research
since half of the class will not be exposed to medical simulation and can
act as a control group. This
randomization has provided an opportunity to assess any difference between
the half of the students that received simulation training and the half
that did not and provided
a means to evaluate the integration of simulation into the third
year clerkship curriculum.
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