The (future) doctor will see you now: Piloting a longitudinal virtual patient in medical education, simulating general practice

Introduction: Virtual patients provide numerous learning opportunities for medical students, yet only support one-off patient interactions. To emulate general practice, allowing multiple encounters with a single patient, a new longitudinal virtual patient (LVP) was developed. Methods: The LVP was integrated into 2nd year at a graduate-entry medical school, in the 2019/2020 academic year. Students were asked about their prior experience and expectations of LVPs, before they engaged with two consultations and one results session. Data were collected from this survey and from the engagement with the LVP. Feedback was collected and thematically grouped. Results: Survey responses indicated that 1.7% (2/120) had previous experience with virtual patients, and the majority expected the LVP to make a difference to their clinical reasoning. Out of the 142 students engaged with the LVP, 53% completed over 75% of the work. Informal feedback arose around accessibility, professional learning and development, and engagement with the LVP module. Discussion: The data indicate that LVPs are agreeable to medical students, with good engagement and positive reports of clinical learning. Conclusion: Future work exploring reasons of engagement or lack of, will support refinement of the LVP to accommodate the learning needs of the medical students.

Automated summary

The study shows that virtual patients are well-received by medical students, with good engagement and positive feedback on clinical learning. Further research on reasons for engagement or lack thereof will help improve the LVP to meet the learning needs of students.