107 Should All Medical Students Receive Clerking Simulation Teaching?

Abstract

Abstract Aim Simulation-based teaching for clerking hospital admissions is not routinely offered in medical school curricula. The Advanced Clinical Reasoning (ACR) course was developed to improve confidence and clinical proficiency in managing surgical and medical patients by allowing students to work through simulated cases in a safe environment. Method The ACR course was optional and face-to-face, consisting of six surgical and six medical simulated cases. The session was divided into practice forming management plans, simulated referrals, and discussion of answers. Students completed pre-course, immediate post-course and six-week post-course questionnaires and knowledge tests. Results Qualitative confidence forming management plans significantly increased post-session and at 6 weeks (p <0.00001), as did preparedness for an acute surgical shift (p <0.00001). The mean knowledge test score pre-session was 64%, which increased significantly to 77% immediately after the course (p = 0.0003) with a significant increase from baseline sustained at 6 weeks (p = 0.0012). 100% of students would recommend the course to another student, with 88% keen to repeat the course with a different case. Conclusions There was statistically significant qualitative and quantitative improvement in both confidence and knowledge after the course, which remained six weeks later. This supports previous research that simulation teaching has excellent outcomes and should be utilised more widely in medical school curricula. The future of this project is to conduct a remote course with a similar sample size to compare outcomes for face-to-face and remote teaching.