The role of simulation in developing communication and gestural skills in medical students

BMC Medical Education

Loredana Sasso²  Giancarlo Torre¹  Francesca Rosa²  Angela Tolotti²  Nicola Pagnucci²  Annamaria Bagnasco² 

[1] Medical Education Center of Genoa, via Pastore 1, Genoa I-16132, Italy;Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa, via Pastore 1, Genoa I-16132, Italy

关键词: Nursing students;    Medical students;    Gestural skills;    Communication skills;    Education;    Simulation;   

Others  :  866702
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-14-106

 received in 2013-09-09, accepted in 2014-04-03,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

International studies have shown that laboratory training, particularly through the application of the principles of simulation learning, is an effective means of developing the communication and gestural skills of healthcare professionals. At the Advanced Simulation Center of the University of Genoa we have therefore established the first clinical skill laboratory with medical school students and an interprofessional team of trainers, as the first step towards developing simulation training of both medical and nursing students at our University.

The aim of this study was to assess student satisfaction with laboratory training in an Advanced Simulation Center.

Methods

All of the third-year students of the Medical School (n = 261) were invited to participate in the laboratory sessions at the Advanced Simulation Center. They were divided into groups and attended the Center for one week. The team of trainers included medical doctors and nurses involved in teaching at the University Medicine and Nursing programs. At the end of the week, the students were administered an anonymous questionnaire made up of two sections: the first one was on the content of individual laboratory sessions; the second on the training methods, materials used and the trainers. A five-point Likert scale was used to measure satisfaction.

Results

According to the students all of the topics covered by the laboratory sessions were irreplaceable. Questionnaire results showed a high level of satisfaction with the methods used, the instruments developed, and with the expertise and approachability of the educators. Almost all of the students wanted to participate in similar laboratory activities in the future.

Conclusions

The study highlighted the need to permanently integrate laboratory training sessions into the curriculum of medical students, who found them very useful and stimulating. The limit of this study was that only the teaching staff was interprofessional, and the students were only 3rd Year students of medicine.

In the future, we hope to include also nursing students because they will need to learn how to deal with aspects of their clinical practice that require an interprofessional approach.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Bagnasco et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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