Research project focuses on using virtual patients to reduce errors in diagnosis
The Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) has revealed the recipients of its 2020 ASME PhD / Doctoral Grant. This is the fourth time ASME has awarded this studentship.
Located at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, the winning project will investigate the effectiveness of personalised self-regulated learning enhanced feedback using virtual patients on clinical reasoning among early medical and physician associate students.
Supervisors include Professor John Sandars and Professor Jeremy Brown of Edge Hill University, in cooperation with Doctor Rakesh Patel and Doctor Christopher Madan at the University of Nottingham.
At its core, the PhD programme aims to improve clinical reasoning among early medical and physician associate students. The chosen candidate will explore how a virtual patient platform helps medical educators assess their students’ clinical knowledge.
They can also identify core self-regulated learning thinking required before, during and after making a diagnosis.
The PhD candidate will have the opportunity to develop the personalised feedback approach used by the platform and investigate how useful it is for both students and teachers. Moreover, they will link this approach to students’ clinical knowledge and core self-regulated learning thinking skills. Over the course of several cases, the researchers hope to be able to connect the relative importance of each component of feedback to the approach’s effectiveness.
ASME Director of Awards Professor Karen Mattick said: “We’re delighted to announce the award of our fourth ASME PhD studentship. This award aims to promote high quality research into medical education and help to secure a career pipeline of talented medical education researchers nationally and internationally.
“The PhD project funded this year explores feedback for early medical and physician associate students on their clinical reasoning and we hope the findings will inform undergraduate health professions education and, ultimately, improve healthcare practice.”
The chosen candidate will receive a stipend, as well as support with the cost of consumables required for the research. ASME will also cover the registration cost to present the work at the Annual Scholarship Meeting
