Ready to work?: Does a simulation education program improve the competence of final year medical students to perform common invasive procedures?

Abstract

Ready to work? Does a simulation education program improve the competence of final year medical students to perform common invasive procedures?

From the day they commence work new medical interns must be ready to perform common invasive procedures. In contrast to this requirement from employing health services, medical schools in Australia have not been required to demonstrate that a graduating student is competent at the appropriate procedural skills. This project investigated the effect of an immersive simulation Educational Intervention (EI) on the competence of final year medical students to perform four common and important procedural skills. A Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) implemented in the simulated environment was developed to measure the students’ performance of the four procedural skills; Intravenous Cannulation, Venepuncture, Male Indwelling Catheter Insertion and Basic Life Support.

The prospective, quasi-experimental study enrolled a cohort of final year medical students who were undertaking their final semester of education between two metropolitan hospital-based Clinical Schools. The students were allocated by convenience into one of three Streams of the study, where they undertook either the usual curriculum or the Educational Intervention. All Streams undertook the internal CBA and their final external university examinations. Results indicated that, compared to the usual procedural skills curriculum, the EI, especially in combination with the CBA, improved competence. Students’ results improved when the CBA was used for formative feedback before summative assessment. Both the EI and the CBA programs have been adopted into a metropolitan medical school curriculum.