Simulation and its role in medical education

Medical education is increasingly laying emphasis on a curriculum based on cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains of learning which were originally proposed nearly 50 years ago. These reforms are framed around best standards of care, error management and patient safety, patient autonomy, and resource allocation. There is a worldwide shift in the method of medical education towards experiential ('hands-on') medical learning; however, applying this concept to real patients is less acceptable to society and is subject to legal and ethical issues. Simulation is the artificial representation of a complex real-world process with sufficient fidelity with the aim to facilitate learning through immersion, reflection, feedback, and practice minus the risks inherent in a similar real-life experience. Medical simulation offers numerous potential strategies for comprehensive and practical training, and safer patient care. It is a technique, rather than just a technology that promotes experiential and reflective learning. It is also a key strategy to teach crisis resource management skills. Simulation can benefit the individual learner, the multidisciplinary team, and the hospital as a whole. In this review, the authors discuss the role of simulation in five situations namely undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training, continuing medical education, disaster management, and military trauma management and dwell upon the experience of medical simulation in the Armed Forces.