Introduction of virtual patients to clinical case portfolios for undergraduate medical students

Abstract

In 2007, a Clinical-Case-Portfolio (CCP) was introduced as a new assessment instrument for fourth grade undergraduate medical students. Since then, several changes have been implemented such as reduction on the number of clinical cases, peer review and the introduction of virtual patient to the portfolio. To describe the virtual patient model incorporated to the CCP and assess the perception of this change and its effects on the performance of undergraduate students. Virtual patients were implemented based on prototype clinical cases with specific syndromes. Students’ perceptions about CCP before and after the introduction of virtual patients were evaluated using a validated questionnaire that was answered voluntarily and anonymously. Overall perception of CCP significantly improved after the incorporation of virtual patients (97.1 ± 24.9 and 111.3 ± 25.7 points; 57.8 and 66.2% respectively). The same improvements were observed for the domains “Student Learning”, “Organization and Evaluation”, “Teaching Methodology” and “Integration”. In both years, students obtained high grades in CCP evaluations. However CCP grades were not significantly correlated with integrated final grades. The incorporation of virtual patients improved undergraduate students’ perception of CCP.