Guest posting by Allyson Knapper
In response to the rapidly changing field of health care, medical schools are working to design a curriculum that better incorporates new and innovative ways of teaching. In their quest, some are turning to a subset of video games known as “serious games”—games that have been created with the purpose of providing training and education. Several games have already been developed, including one designed by Stanford physicians and researchers called Septris.1 This web-based game was created to better educate medical students on how to recognize and treat the bacterial infection Sepsis, which claims over 750,000 lives a year.2 Working through a series of case studies, users develop decision making and problem solving skills as they decide the best treatment plans for their virtual patients.
Following the initial success of Septris, Stanford released a second game called SICKO (Surgical Improvement of Clinical Knowledge Ops), which was designed to help surgeons determine how to triage patients and in what situations it is safe to conduct surgery, important skills that are tested on the board exams.3 Similar games have been developed by other academic institutions that deal with a variety of conditions ranging from diabetes to neuroscience.
Although real patients and high-tech simulation centers are the optimal tools for learning, access to these resources are limited to the medical school setting. In contrast, videogames can be accessed from anywhere that there is an internet connection, making it a great and an effective way to reinforce knowledge learned in the classroom. This study tool is more engaging than reading a textbook or listening to a lecture and is highly accurate in depicting real-world experiences. For example, a research study conducted at the University Medical Center Freiburg in Germany found that student test scores on a 34 point exam increased by three points after a week of playing an electronic adventure game.4 Additionally, students can learn about the consequences of making a bad decision without it actually affecting a real patient.
Although there are many benefits to this type of learning, it remains to be determined what the long-term effects of playing these games are—do the skills and knowledge acquired from games “stick” as well as information gained from more traditional learning techniques (such as lecture and reading), or are these just short-term gains? How many hours of gameplay are required to master the topic presented in the videogame? Do the hours spent working with virtual patients surpass the amount of time needed to develop a skill when working with real patients?
Despite the unanswered questions, serious games present a promising solution to the outdated school curriculum, and there is no doubt that medical schools will adopt this form of teaching as more games of this type continue to be developed.
References
1. https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/june2014/384790/technology-medical-education.html
2. http://med.stanford.edu/septris/
3. http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/09/stanford-designed-game-teaches-surgical-decision-making.html
4. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082328
Image sources
1. www.gameifications.com
2. www.imedicalapps.com