The future of conference posters: 'hipster and geek!'.

Abstract

sisting of those who are willing to dive straight in to take a history in front of their peers, and those who hide in the distance. Quiet candidates may have an understanding but feel overpowered by their more overbearing colleagues. Alternatively they may not have a thorough appreciation of the case in question and hence do not engage accordingly. What was tried? To help assist candidates who are primarily overpowered by more vocal students during real-life patient encounters and to ensure adequate exposure to history taking, we trialled a virtual patient encounter centred on back pain. We utilised this case as it can present in both acute and chronic settings and has numerous differentials that range from musculoskeletal to neurological contexts. The case involved interacting with a virtual patient through text-based means and focused on all aspects of history taking, from eliciting the presenting complaint to recording the past medical history, family history, social history and drug history, and included a systems review. Candidates were allowed to interact with the virtual patient at leisure through their own computer-based devices and in an environment they preferred. Following completion, candidates were asked to report their differentials and the most likely diagnosis, and to detail how they would proceed with investigations and management of the case. What lessons were learned? We utilised this virtual case to gather feedback from students on whether this approach to history taking would prove useful prior to real-life patient assessment. We also learned that it is often difficult for candidates to interact with such pathology in real life in the absence of exposure or patient agreement to interact with student doctors. We were able to demonstrate that the case proved useful in the aspects mentioned. We also gained information on how we might enhance the realism of the virtual patient interaction by using speech recognition technology, as well as by developing answer options to questions that offered a more appropriate response than: ‘Sorry, I do not understand the question.’ With consideration of these points, we are now able to refine the current virtual case before introducing it in a more formalised fashion.