Clinic Games

Name of the activity: Clinic Games

Country/NMO: Ecuador (AEMPPI-Ecuador)

Program: Teaching Medical Skills

Contact information: [email protected]; You can also contact to the other activity coordinator [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education. Education on health issues for specific societal groups, either in the form of projects (set of tasks for a certain group over a fixed period of time), events (something notable that happens) or conferences (form meeting about ideas related to a particular topic, usually over several days).

General description:

The Clinic Games are a clinic case resolution competition. This activity helps students (both participants and audience) develop new skills to perform a correct anamnesis and physical exam, through an orderly questioning of a project´s monitor acting as the patient. Meanwhile, students also practice how to assertively propose diagnostic hypotheses and fill out a medical history. According to the team´s questions relevance or clinical findings searched for during the physical exam, they will be assigned a certain amount of points. Finally, the students will compete to solve several questions regarding the cases; the speed and quality of their answers will be scored. At the end, the attending doctors will give feedback for participants, audience and project coordinators to help clear any doubts. This dynamic will happen three times in two different phases, and the winner will be the team that solves two clinic cases successfully.

Focus area:

It involves multiple of these options including: Diagnostic measures, Doctor-Patient communication skills and Diagnostic test interpretation

Problem statement:

It is a reality that medical students often have great difficulties when they first start working with real-life patients. Holguín in 2013, reported that 95% of third year students had difficulties performing patient interviews. Furthermore, 93,6% of these students did not reach a correct diagnosis. Considering that in many countries, including Ecuador, medical students start their clinical practices during their third year, these numbers become alarming.

Target groups:

Medical students

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Other Students, Doctors

Objectives and indicators of success:

Main Objective

To teach at least 20 students from first to sixth semester how to face clinical scenarios by solving cases designed by students with more experience and the guidance of doctors. There will be 4 teams solving 2 clinical cases and a round of questions called “battle of knowledge” at the end. We aim to prepare 3 games by the end of the semester. All of them would take place in the classrooms of our university. The team that has approached closer to the correct diagnosis will be the winner, this will indicate the success of the project.

Secondary Objectives:

– To teach attendees how to correctly fill a medical history by providing each group with information projected on a screen At the end this objective will be measure by the revision of the medical history by the organizers at the end of the event.

– To teach attendees how to assertively perform an anamnesis by rewarding with 5,10 or 15 points for their group (of 4 people each) by the relevance of the questions. The indicator will be the final score of each group.

At the end of each case, we try to consolidate the new knowledge through questions performed by professionals with experience on each field.

Methodology:

The competition will be among 4 groups of students, each conformed by 3 participants from different years in medical school. Only 2 groups will go through to the second and final round. The participants will be provided with a patient’s reason for consultation to develop their case. One of the juries will act as the patient and will answer all questions. According to the relevance of their questions during the patient´s anamnesis, a score will be assigned. Afterwards, the groups will have to indicate the way perform a proper physical exam. Each team will state possible diagnostic hypotheses and will ask for specific exams. Finally, “the battle of knowledge” will take place where some questions related to the cases will be asked. The first team to ring a bell will have the chance to answer the question. The team´s answer will either gain or lose points.

To close the activity, the doctors will provide feedback to everyone

Plans for evaluation:

At the end of the activity, every attendee (including participants, public, monitors and doctors) will be asked to fill a feedback survey.

The following questions will be asked:

What was your favorite part of the project?

What could be improved?

Is there any topic that you think could be further explored?

What did you learn from the project?

Do you feel that your medical history completing skills have improved?

Do you think you are now more capable of performing a correct anamnesis?