Student acceptability of human patient simulators in undergraduate OSCEs

For many years low-fidelity, medium-fidelity and high-fidelity simulation within various undergraduate healthcare professional (HCP) curricula has been widely used in the provision of clinical education. Part task trainers, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) manikins and human patient simulators (HPS) are now routinely used at varying stages of training to allow learners to practise the required skills in a ‘safe environment’. Similarly, many of these educational establishments will use the same part task trainers and CPR manikins to assess competency and performance of clinical skills. However, as the use of simulation in its various forms continues to rise in both undergraduate and postgraduate education, there still remains a sparsity of evidence with regard to its acceptance in undergraduate degree examinations.

This paper describes the development and subsequent use of an anaphylaxis/cardiac arrest scenario in a final-year medicine objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) and the postexamination student acceptability of including a simulation-based scenario in a high-stakes final-year examination.