TeleSimBox: A perceived effective alternative for experiential learning for medical student education with social distancing requirements

Abstract

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic the Association of American Medical Colleges recommended that medical students not be involved with in-person patient care or teaching, necessitating alternative learning opportunities. Subsequently we developed the telesimulation education platform: TeleSimBox. We hypothesized that this remote simulation platform would be feasible and acceptable for faculty use and a perceived effective method for medical student education.

Methods: Twenty-one telesimulations were conducted with students and educators at four U.S. medical schools. Sessions were run by cofacilitator dyads with four to 10 clerkship-level students per session. Facilitators were provided training materials. User-perceived effectiveness and acceptability were evaluated via descriptive analysis of survey responses to the Modified Simulation Effectiveness Tool (SET-M), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Likert-scale questions.

Results: Approximately one-quarter of students and all facilitators completed surveys. Users perceived that the sessions were effective in teaching medical knowledge and teamwork, though less effective for family communication and skills. Users perceived that the telesimulations were comparable to other distance learning and to in-person simulation. The tool was overall positively promoted.

Conclusion: Users overall positively scored our medical student telesimulation tool on the SET-M objectives and promoted the experience to colleagues on the NPS. The next steps are to further optimize the tool.

Keywords: COVID‐19 educational innovations; medical student education; simulation‐based medical education; telesimulation.