Hull-York students learn with virtual patients

Students at the Hull-York Medical School have become the first in England to incorporate the use of online virtual patients into their studies.

The school, part of the new generation of medical schools in England, has adopted the use of virtual patients to support its problem-based approach to learning which brings students in contact with real, virtual and simulated (actor) patients from the start of their course. The virtual patients’ details and records are created to help students to relate the medical science they are learning to the real world of patient care.

The first students started using the virtual patients at the start of the autumn term and senior lecturer, Dr Lesley Jones, reported that they seemed to be very enthusiastic.

The use of virtual patients has grown in the US in recent years. A paper in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (fee or subscription required) gives an account of their use at the University of Minneapolis Medical School, Minnesota.

Dr Jones said some American virtual patients were being used but others had been created at Hull-York. She said they were a “good study tool”.

Dr Stephen Smith of Brown University, Rhode Island, an expert quoted in the JAMA article, says that the use of virtual patients “comes close to replicating what we really expect a doctor to do.”

Dr Debra Danoff, associate vice-president of medical education at the Association of American Medical Colleges, says that medical schools considering the use of virtual patients have to weigh the benefits – flexibility and cases that fit well with course material – with the potential drawbacks of cost and having the information technology capabilities to set up virtual clinic web sites.