Introducing Low-Fidelity Simulation Teaching in the Early Years of Undergraduate Medical Training

Simulation is a widely used educational tool for both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. There are different levels of simulation fidelity; low fidelity uses simplistic models but is often cost/time effective, whereas high fidelity tends to bring more realism but is resource-intensive. In undergraduate medical training, simulation is often used for students in their final year of medical school prior to qualifying as a doctor, and therefore, the literature is limited with regard to students in their earlier years of training. The aim of this project was to create cost/resource-effective, low-fidelity simulation training sessions for more junior medical students to help them consolidate skills learnt in isolation, in turn facilitating higher levels of critical thinking.

We developed low-fidelity simulation sessions for third-year (first year clinical) medical students. These comprised clinical scenarios that would encourage students to apply skills that were previously taught or assessed in isolation, to form a holistic clinical assessment of a patient. Students were given a pre- and post-session questionnaire to help ascertain the usefulness of the sessions.

Thirty-two students took part in the simulation sessions. Questionnaires were used to ascertain their level of confidence in the full assessment of a patient. Their pre- and post-session feedback was compared, and the subjective scores were 4.09/10 and 8.25/10, respectively (p<0.05). Qualitative feedback suggested that the students enjoyed the clinically adjacent nature of the scenarios and felt that they were able to consolidate the knowledge they had obtained in pre-clinical years.

We demonstrated that students in earlier years of training can benefit from simulation teaching. Running the sessions was light on resources and an effective tool for students to consolidate skills and apply higher levels of thinking, preparing them for future years of training.