During my career in medical education, I created hundreds of simulation cases for students and residents to use in the simulation lab. After some time, what I realized was that residents showed up to the simulation lab with completely different knowledge levels, and how much a resident participated in the simulation was influenced by their pre-knowledge and experience. I also realized that while collaboration between residents promoted communication skills, it also made it harder to observe individual competence.
In the flurry of activity, roles usually defaulted to a team-based approach where the leader knew the most. The others fell into more passive learning roles. Even when roles were pre-assigned, a downside of the cooperation was that it hampered training for the most unprepared residents in the room.
To solve this issue, we developed Full Code to give you the opportunity to observe individual competence at a granular level. In the app, learners can pursue deliberate practice independently, as they’re no longer restricted to learning in a time-limited experience. They can achieve competence before showing up to your classroom or simulation lab – allowing you to focus on more advanced concepts and skills development.
How to use virtual simulation in your curriculum
Here is a short list of the most valuable ways to use virtual simulation in a curriculum, no matter how many learners you teach.
Learner leveling before classroom or manikin simulation
Learners can play through a simulation case prior to coming to your simulation lab, equipping them to engage in higher-level learning about communication skills and team management. Covering the basics beforehand maximizes the value of in-person simulation sessions.
Learner assessment on clinical performance in medical decision-making
Spaced learning and repetition by playing cases repeatedly over time
Have your learners develop a “portfolio” of case completions to demonstrate durability in their learning. Spaced repetition is scientifically proven to improve retention, and Full Code enables your students to use it on any device, anywhere, and at any time.
Introduction to diagnoses prior to starting a clinical rotation
Help students prepare for clinical rotations using Full Code to help recognize patterns of clinical presentations, how to use diagnostic testing, and indications for specific medications, procedures, and clinical guidelines. Get students ready for clinical rotations by training up on their medical decision-making across rotation-specific case sets, or custom ones you’ve assembled, from our library of core clinical cases.
On-boarding of new students or staff to workflows and guidelines
Use Full Code Creator to customize any case to reflect your local standards of practice, guidelines, and system resources. Use Creator to include your institution’s medications, diagnostic tests, consultation patterns, admission, observation, and discharge options to update learners of any experience level on new workflows and changes in clinical practice.
Document changes in clinical practice
Rather than rely on passive learning to change practice and ensure competence, use Creator to make custom simulation assignments to give clinicians the opportunity to demonstrate best practice principles learned from sentinel events or safety reports.
Continuing education on practice updates (with CME credit)
Maintaining expert performance takes deliberate practice, and our virtual simulations are the most efficient way to reinforce skills. Full Code allows users to choose simulation cases from a list of chief complaints, medical disciplines, or from our clinician-curated collection of “rare” cases that provide your faculty with CME. Users can easily, and privately, practice medical decision-making in rare or high-risk cases that are a source of medico-legal risk and anxiety in real-world clinical practice. In fact, 89% of our professional users feel more comfortable with their MDM after using Full Code. In just 10 minutes, you can refresh your knowledge of critical actions for disease states that you might see only a few times in your career.
