Five-Day Simulated Boot Camp Helps Prepare Medical Students for Transition to Internship Emergency Medicine Rotation

Abstract

Medical simulation-based training offers a risk-free clinical environment and also promotes learner investment in active participation and allows for structured feedback for individual performance improvement. Adult learning needs specific methodologies for knowledge acquisition and skill improvement, which can be met by simulation sessions. Nowadays, integration of medical simulation into curriculum is the main concern of faculties. Patient safety, malpractice, and increased mortality rates caused by human errors increases the importance of medical simulation sessions for both undergraduate and postgraduate training programs (1). Many patient profiles that can be encountered in the emergency department (ED) can be simulated. High-fidelity patient simulators allow medical students to gain experience in contemporary educational practices before practicing on patients. For internship programs before they meet with real patients, boot camp courses in medical simulation centers are widely organized by universities. In Turkey, our university is pioneering this kind of educational programs. After preclinical conditions, interns feel fear and anxiety to take part in the real ED and work with the staff and equipment. Also, it is diffucult to manage that kind of situations for the instructors. This type of learner presents a challenge to the ED staff and physicians in teaching setings while still maintaining ED flow and the same level of patient care (1, 2). Center of Advanced Simulation and Education (CASE) is a multidisciplinary medical simulation center under the supervision of the university. The center has been running since 21 October 2013. CASE aims to give high-quality education with new training methodologies by using state-of-art simulation modalities and medical equipment. The center consists of two departments, medical simulation training center and advanced endoscopic/robotic surgery training center. CASE offers three types of simulation-based experiential learning via standardized patients, virtual reality task trainers, and high-fidelity manikins in a real hospital environment (Figure 1).