Implementation of virtual simulation in undergraduate medical education

Abstract

Introduction. Medical education focuses on the training of competent health professionals for clinical practice, to achieve this it uses various strategies, including simulation, however, since the pandemic and the confinement due to COVID-19, the implementation of the hybrid model and simulation-based education, both distance and virtual, was chosen. Thus, the objective of this project was to know the experience of the use of virtual patients through the Body Interact simulator by undergraduate students of the UNAM Faculty of Medicine.
Material and methods. It is a non-experimental and quantitative study, 74 undergraduate students from the UNAM Faculty of Medicine were evaluated with two appraisal lists in a pre-test and post-test. The reliability obtained by Cronbach's Alpha test was 0.94 for the pretest and 0.95 for the posttest. It was calculated the
descriptive statistics of the results for each instrument and the T test for simple paired samples.
Results. A p <0.05 was obtained, which indicates that the difference is statistically significant between the pretest and posttest.
Discussion. Students perceive an improvement in the individual learning process with the use of the Body Interact simulator, in addition, they consider that it is related to the flexibility and accessibility of their pedagogical strategy and the curricular contents, it provides an opportunity to put their knowledge into practice, Thus, their expectations were exceeded and they felt satisfied when using it. In addition, it allowed them to develop communication, decision-making and critical thinking skills.
Conclusion. The Body Interact simulator is perceived as a useful tool to support the teaching of medical students, however, it is important to evaluate the development of clinical skills.