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.