JADE 5th edition | Page 66

LETTERS | 66 LETTERS | Letter Title Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) 2015 Conference Abstract: What can a safe effective clinical outcomes approach offer students in secondary care simulations? Author(s) Simon P Gay Margaret H Bartlett Robert K McKinley Contact [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] LETTERS|| 67 ASME 2015 CONFERENCE ABSTRACT Background Untimed simulated clinics in a general practice setting, focused on safe and effective clinical outcomes (SECO) and unobserved by faculty, were first developed and introduced into undergraduate medical student education in Otago, New Zealand in 2004(1). These clinics offer students opportunities to make decisions, implement management plans and conduct complete consultations. Formative feedback is provided by the simulated patients based upon achievement of predetermined outcomes from the patient perspective, and from faculty assessment of case presentation skills, medical records, prescriptions and other outputs generated within the consultation. In the 2013-14 academic year, Keele University School of Medicine piloted SECO clinics in a general practice setting. This approach was well received by students and it was decided to not only continue the primary care pilot project in the academic year 2014-15 but also to extend the pilot into a secondary care setting. Aim To determine what medical students value about the SECO approach in a simulated secondary care setting. Method Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Medical School Research Ethics Committee. Six 90 minute SECO simulated ward sessions were conducted over an 18 week period. A total of 95 final year medical students were eligible to take part in the secondary care SECO sessions. Students completed an end of session feedback questionnaire and 8 students were invited to take part in each of two semi-structured group interviews immediately after their simulation sessions. Data collection is currently still underway but, when complete, thematic analysis of the questionnaires and the group interview transcripts will be undertaken. Results Preliminary analysis of data gathered so far (45 students) suggests that students highly value the educational experience. The completed analysis of all data will be presented at the conference. Discussion The preliminary analysis indicates that unobserved safe effective clinical outcomes clinics can offer additional educational value to final year medical students. Students considered the experience to be of benefit for a range of reasons including the challenging nature of the cases offered, increased realism in comparison to OSCEs and multiple perceptions of the benefits of not being directly observed. Additional themes arising from the data will be presented at the conference. References Williamson M, Walker T, Egan T, Storr E, Ross J, Kenrick K. The Safe and Effective Clinical Outcomes (SECO) clinic: learning responsibility for patient care through simulation. Teach Learn Med 2013; 25(2):155-158.