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Evaluating surgeons' informed decision making skills: pilot test using a videoconferenced standardised patient.
Sarah L Clever1, Dennis H Novack, Diane G Cohen
1Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA. sclever@jhmi.edu
Medical Education
|February 27, 2004
Summary
Videoconferencing technology enabled standardized patients (SPs) to accurately assess surgeons' informed decision-making (IDM) skills remotely. This innovative approach proved acceptable to surgeons for medical education and skill development.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Surgical Training
- Health Communication
Background:
- Standardized patients (SPs) are valuable for assessing communication skills in medical training.
- Resource limitations at training sites can hinder the development and maintenance of SP programs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate if videoconferencing technology (VT) facilitates accurate assessment of orthopaedic surgeons' informed decision-making (IDM) skills by SPs.
- To determine the acceptability of VT-based SP interactions for orthopaedic surgeons' IDM skill development.
Main Methods:
- An SP trained to portray a patient considering hip replacement interacted with orthopaedic surgeons via VT.
- SPs evaluated surgeons' IDM skills using a checklist and provided feedback.
- Surgeons provided feedback on the VT interaction and its educational value.
Main Results:
- The SP accurately classified 20 out of 23 IDM skills (>=80% accuracy).
- Despite some technological distractions (55%), 86% of surgeons would recommend this method for learning IDM skills.
- The VT interaction was found to be acceptable for assessing IDM skills.
Conclusions:
- Videoconferencing technology enables accurate evaluation of informed decision-making skills.
- VT-based SP interactions are an acceptable and potentially valuable tool for long-distance medical education and skill assessment in orthopaedics.