Dissemination of the Results of SAFEMED+ Project “Simulation Training at the Undergraduate Level of Medical Education to Improve the Safety and Quality of Patient Care” within Erasmus+ КА2 CBHE Program

On March 14 – 23, 2023, I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University held teacher training courses “New approaches in organizing and conducting OSCE. The use of computer technologies at OSCE stations” within the framework of the dissemination of the results of the SAFEMED+ project “Simulation training at the undergraduate level of medical education to improve the safety and quality of patient care” within Erasmus+ КА2 CBHE program.

The curators of the course were Nataliia Haliyash, Associate Professor of the Department of Paediatrics No. 2 (who is responsible for the courses development and implementation), Nadiia Pasiaka, leading specialist of the interdepartmental educational and training centre of TNMU, Nataliia Petrenko, Associate Professor of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology No. 2, and Nataliia Bilkevych, Associate Professor of the Department of Propaedeutics of Internal Medicine and Phthisiology.

The aim of the courses was to increase teachers’ awareness of the rules for organizing and conducting an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), to familiarize with new possibilities for testing students’ competence by using computer technologies, to improve the skills of creating clinical scenarios for OSCE both in offline format, and with virtual simulation of cases. The course program was designed for 1 ECTS credit (30 hours). For communication and dissemination of information, the course curators suggested mastering the format of the Padlet page, on which participants could find the schedule and all the information necessary for independent processing.

At the first lesson, Nadiia Pasiaka introduced the audience to the experience and achievements of TNMU in conducting OSCE and ways to improve it.

Nataliia Bilkevych spoke about the experience of conducting OSCE in the participating countries of the SAFEMED+ project, in particular at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain and two medical universities in Yerevan, Armenia. She also focused in detail on the stages of preparation for OSCE, emphasized the need for careful preparation of methodical materials and clinical scenarios. Participants were able to ask questions to clarify unclear points.

The next lesson was devoted to an important stage of OSCE preparation, i.e. the requirements for the development of tasks (scenarios), algorithms and checklists. Detailed information about this was presented by Nataliia Bilkevych.

The next lecture by Nataliia Haliyash was devoted to the presentation of the results of the SAFEMED+ project, in particular the presentation of the OSCE methodology with virtual simulation of clinical cases. The expediency of implementing this OSCE format is based on the possibility to ensure the organization of a greater number of stations with saving resources, and it is also convenient for effectively testing such a component of the student’s clinical competence as clinical thinking, the ability to prescribe laboratory-instrumental examination and interpret the results obtained, and determine patient management tactics. With the correct development of the clinical scenario, it is also possible to test certain aspects of the student’s communicative competence or to test their knowledge of physical examination algorithms. Course participants had the opportunity to “try on” the role of students and go through one virtual station already created in Moodle. They were also tasked with developing one clinical case for virtual simulation.

At the “Communicative Competence” work-shop, the participants met at the Interdepartmental Education and Training Centre of TNMU, where Professor Arsen Hudyma spoke about the centre’s new capabilities and equipment. Nataliia Bilkevych and Nataliia Petrenko talked about the peculiarity of assessing communicative competence during OSCE and the rules for attracting and preparing standardized patients. The participants were given the opportunity to act as OSCE examiners and evaluate the provided algorithms and checklists. This allowed them to be convinced of the importance of thorough preparation at all stages of the OSCE organization.

The next lesson was devoted to discussing the importance of forming so-called soft skills in students. Nataliia Petrenko said that today scientists and futurologists, analysing the possible ways of future development, reviewed the key competences that graduates will need for effective employment. We – teachers – must understand what to prepare our students for.

Nataliia Haliyash told the teachers about the possibilities of using the CAPSULE (Link https://learn.capsule.ac.uk/cases) and CASUS (https://player.casus.net/) platforms. The CASUS platform is provided for use by colleagues at the Medical University of Munich. Currently, there are about 80 cases with virtual patients available in Ukrainian and English. The advantage of this platform is that it provides the possibility of structured analysis of cases for clinical thinking development. You need to register from your university inbox @tdmu.edu.ua. The platform is available for teachers and students.

At the last session in the simulation centre, the course participants had the opportunity not only to learn about the possibilities of the virtual reality technique, but also to try it in action. In conclusion, the attendees practiced how to interact with digitized checklists that are used at TNMU during OSCE.

The participants of the training express their appreciation to the international team of the SAFEMED+ project for valuable practical experience, innovative information, and help in improving the mechanisms and system of conducting OSCE.

Information was provided by Nataliia Haliyash.

Photographs by the course curators.