SynthesisBMC medical education2017
Do virtual patients prepare medical students for the real world? Development and application of a framework to compare a virtual patient collection with population data.
Synthesis in BMC medical education, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05686187 (Establishing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Augmented Reality Technology in Gender Empowerment System for Long-term Care Workers), which is not on this map. Cited by 14 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Establishing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Augmented Reality Technology in Gender Empowerment System for Long-term Care Workers: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Use of Virtual Patients and Related Training Outcomes in Postgraduate Psychiatry Residency Education: A Scoping Review.Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry · 2026Review
- Virtual Simulation Tools for Communication Skills Training in Health Care Professionals: Literature Review.JMIR medical education · 2025Review
- Learning technology for Ayurveda with pedagogically designed virtual patient case simulations.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of a virtual patient simulation training on improving provider engagement in suicide safer care.Community mental health journal · 2024Article
- Envisioning the Future of Personalized Medicine: Role and Realities of Digital Twins.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Virtual simulations for neonatal education.Seminars in perinatology · 2023Article
- Frequently Used Conceptual Frameworks and Design Principles for Extended Reality in Health Professions Education.Medical science educator · 2022Article
- Planning a Collection of Virtual Patients to Train Clinical Reasoning: A Blueprint Representative of the European Population.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Iranian nursing students experiences regarding the status of e-learning during COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2022Article
- Perception towards Online Teaching-learning in Medical Education among Medical Students during COVID-19 Outbreak in Nepal: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study.JNMA; journal of the Nepal Medical Association · 2021Article
- Using interviews and observations in clinical practice to enhance authenticity in virtual patients for interprofessional education.BMC medical education · 2020Article
- Designing virtual patient based self-study quizzes covering learning goals in clinical diagnostic sciences for undergraduate medical students - the radiology example.GMS journal for medical education · 2020Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAn important aspect of virtual patients (VPs), which are interactive computer-based patient scenarios, is authenticity. This includes design aspects, but also how a VP collection represents a patient population and how a patient is presented in a VP scenario. Therefore, our aim was to analyze VP scenarios integrated into the combined internal medicine and surgery curriculum at the University of Munich (LMU) and compare the results with data from the population in Germany.
methodWe developed a coding framework with four main categories: patient data, patient representation, diagnoses, and setting. Based on the framework we analyzed 66 VP and compared the results with data from the German healthcare system.
resultsEspecially in the categories of patient data and patient representation, the VPs presented an unrealistic image of the real world; topics such as unemployment, disability, or migration background were almost non-existent. The diagnoses of the VPs and the onset of diseases were comparable with the healthcare data.
conclusionsAn explanation for the lack of representativeness of the patient data and representation might be a trend to create VPs based on fictional patient stories with VP authors trying to minimize complexity and cognitive load for the students. We suggest raising awareness among VP authors concerning personalized representations of patients without overwhelming their students. Our framework can support educators to assess the authenticity and diversity of a VP collection.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.