Scaffolding clinical decision-making using interactive patient scenarios

Developing clinical decision-making skills is fundamental in healthcare education. The challenge was how to achieve this in a safe space during the COVID-19 pandemic – and using realistic simulations that were adaptable for differing stages of the students’ training. Existing resources were limited to text and photographic based case studies, which present results of clinical tests but do not require the student to watch, listen and interpret for themselves. To create a realistic, interactive simulation experience, I used the online platform ThingLink, which contains interactive hotspots of patient audio, video, images, and text. This allowed the students to work through an eye examination as they would in real life, observing and interpreting the clinical tests being carried out, and listening to a patient voice. Small group-based learning was used to encourage discussion and interaction within the groups. Facilitators posed questions both during and after the discussions using a structured debrief. This proved to be a very effective way of developing clinical decision-making skills, and verbal feedback was given in real time. The ThingLink resources could be easily cloned and adapted to align with the students' current knowledge level. The structured debrief document could also be adapted for the same scenario to target certain competencies such as communication, record keeping, professionalism and sharing bad news.