As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads across the U.S., hospital systems scrambled to accommodate the influx of patients and created some similar protocols to treat these infectious patients. Due to the high demand for intensive care for critically ill patients, many clinicians are being reassigned to areas outside their specialties. Many of my ENT residents, with their expertise in airway management, are called upon to take charge of the hospital’s intensive care unit. Other colleagues in pulmonology, cardiology, and gastroenterology were also reassigned to the ICU, given their medical backgrounds. New York State began graduating medical students early, an unheard of situation, just to get more medical professionals on the front lines. The agency also quickly established temporary boot camps for reassigned and reassigned clinicians, giving them a crash course in how to deliver ICU-level care under the direction of a real intensivist.
This is a scary time that shakes the core of everyone’s sense of self-efficacy and confidence in their ability to care for their patients, a feeling many people don’t experience early in their medical training. The medical community is hungry for information and is scrambling to figure out how to rapidly upskill practicing clinicians and make up for the huge learning losses of trainees who lost vital experiential learning during in-person training and simulation center closures.
Before the pandemic, many medical students and residents turned to simulation centers to supplement their training, especially when rotations and other in-person training opportunities were limited. Healthcare professionals, especially those in the early stages of their careers, use these centers to practice challenging cases and build confidence in their cognitive and psychomotor skills without having to touch patients.with the end 600 Accredited Simulation Centers In the United States, these facilities are an integral part of medical education. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many of these centers, along with residential and other in-person opportunities, limited operations, there is no effective and accessible experiential training method for students and staff.
The backup plan for complementary medicine education is not necessarily lectures via teleconferencing platforms, 2D animations, and walkthrough videos. There’s a better way, and it’s already available on smartphones, laptops, and other portable devices. Software-based interactive training is one of the most convenient, effective and engaging options for the digitally savvy generation. For example, instead of watching a video, physicians can simulate the intubation process on their phone to familiarize themselves with tools and operations in a more interactive way. Elsewhere, aspiring pulmonologists can prepare for unexpected cases by playing a mobile game that mimics a challenging bronchoscopy during their daily commute.
This method is not only more convenient, but also very effective.
This hybrid model, combining occasional synchronous training with numerical methods, can Train higher order thinking skills Such as judgment, situational analysis, medical decision-making, and motor planning are aligned with the development of psychomotor skills.
With software-based mobile simulators such as video games, physicians can master the cognitive aspects of their careers before entering physical facilities. Granted, the mobility option may not train some mechanical and tactile skills like face-to-face training, but HCPs can still participate in all aspects of the program other than purely mechanical. Unlike watching lectures or videos, this interactive cognitive training encourages players to solve problems and explore new solutions, Ultimately inspires deeper learning.
In addition to core cognitive skills, mobile games can teach soft leadership skills, effective communication, and even empathy.Specifically, in healthcare, Dr. Pablo Buitron de la Vega, physician and associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, developed a Virtual Poverty Simulator Game Once deployed, it is possible to impart knowledge about social determinants of health (SDOH). While other such simulations exist, the authenticity and interactivity of Dr. Buitron de la Vega’s platform leverages experiential learning, ensuring that students retain information at a deeper level.
This asynchronous training doesn’t have to be a separate task either. For years, the gaming industry has embraced cloud-based collaboration, allowing players to connect wherever they are. Leveraging this technology for medical training could reimagine the point-to-point training of modern doctors. There’s even a future for more user-generated content as doctors transform into gamers creating their challenges.
This interest in self-directed training will not go away even as medical rotations resume normal attendance and simulation centers open their doors. The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated this shift to asynchronous distance learning. To keep up with the pace of innovation in the industry, these learners also need faculty who know how to engage students in digital education.
For example, we started using these brand new technologies in our hospital to provide remote simulations and virtual lectures to fill in the gaps. These modalities replace recorded lectures and videos with live education delivered thousands of miles away. Game-based learning brings new solutions to educators’ gear, ensuring that participants from multiple locations and even continents can participate in the same interactive experience.
Mobile training isn’t just a cool new way to train and engage in peer-to-peer collaboration. This expansion of asynchronous training isn’t just a prediction — it’s an evolution going on in healthcare right now, not just for medical students, residents, and their faculty.Practitioners, nurses, EMTs and other healthcare professionals are also seeking More interactivity and flexibility In their medical training, brought changes that were more lasting than the pandemic.
Now is the time for the healthcare industry to invest more in these software-based solutions, giving healthcare professionals the resources they need to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Otherwise, these professionals will fall behind the curve of medical progress and catch up with their visionary counterparts.
Photo: Asawin_Klabma, Getty Images
