Досвід використання платформи віртуальних клінічних випадків CASUS під час підготовки студентів на кафедрі внутрішньої медицини

Abstract

The development of medicine places increased demands on the quality of medical services. The quality of medical care and the quality of life of patients should be the basis for evaluating the professional performance of doctors. It is obvious that modern medical education must also correspond to the development of technologies and changes in the surrounding information environment. High requirements for the development of practical skills by medical students, the relevance of educational material and the approximation of the educational environment to the environment of practical medicine make virtual technologies a key direction in the development of medical education. The purpose of our study was to investigate the student’s attitude to work with virtual patients on the CASUS platform, to evaluate the quality of perception of this type of training and the degree of assistance in the process of forming clinical thinking skills. Materials and methods. Students were surveyed about their impressions of using the platform and the effectiveness of CASUS in improving clinical thinking. The survey was conducted using a Google form, which contained 10 questions. The questionnaire was available in Ukrainian and English languages. The results. Students answered questions about their attitude to working with virtual patients, as well as the positive and negative aspects of working on the CASUS platform. According to the interviewed students, the positive moments in working with virtual patients were: the format of a real dialogue with the patient, the availability of the latest research methods, instant feedback from experts, the convenience of the interface, the variety of clinical cases, the development of clinical thinking, and most importantly, the opportunity to test yourself as a doctor from the beginning of the dialogue with the patient to the diagnosis. Conclusions. Based on our experience and the obtained results of the conducted research, we found a significant positive effect of virtual patient technology in undergraduate medical education, the obvious advantages of using a virtual patient for the formation and improvement of clinical and diagnostic decisionmaking competencies have been identified.