Last week, the students of ScotGEM’s Year 3 currently based within NHS Highland got together (in an orderly, socially-distanced manner) for some in-person tutorials and clinical simulations at the Centre for Health Science in Inverness.
It was our last opportunity for group face-to-face teaching this calendar year alongside our friends and colleagues, who are in the midst of the longitudinal integrated clerkship, the year-long apprenticeship-style placement in a remote and/or rural area of Scotland.
As well as learning ‘on-the-job’ as we all have been doing this academic year, the opportunity to revisit areas that some of us may have not had a lot of exposure to since August, including paediatrics and neurology, was enthusiastically received.
Practical, hands-on and in-person teaching and learning is essential for medical students. After all, medicine is a hands-on vocation. There’s only ever so much anyone can get from discussions or presentations over the web.
On the other hand, simulated clinical scenarios for teaching aren’t perfect either. They are essential, to provide a safe environment where all clinicians can practice new skills and techniques and learn what shouldn’t be said or done in the real world, but even the most advanced, realistic of simulations are still a far cry from the real thing.
I personally can never fully put out of my mind the fact that I’m talking to a volunteer actor, doing their best to remember their script, or that I’m sliding a needle through the thick, rubber ‘skin’ of a part-trainer model. To me, Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCEs) are even more artificial, since we need to dive in and out of many very different scenarios in quick succession, doing what we can against the clock, with cameras and microphones recording our every move for our later educational benefit (and extreme cringe factor). All the while an assessor sits in the corner, staring you down, taking notes as you sift through your stress-addled mind to remember which ‘red flag’ questions to ask the fake patient.
On the other hand, a busy Emergency Department might not be all that different, if the assessor was replaced by the patient’s concerned or disgruntled friend or family member.
At the end of the day, it is essential that medical students are assessed to have the requisite knowledge, skills and behaviours to be able to safely and effectively help people after they qualify and start earning a wage. Simulations are a safe way of doing this, and it was great to be able to do a bit of this again despite the ongoing pandemic.
If there’s one thing that can never stop or be slowed down by COVID-19, it is medical education. We always need to keep going, so that when the time comes, we can all be ready to do our bit.
