Sunday, September 18, 2011

New Review of Simulation Education

A new article in JAMA looks at the effectiveness of simulations in health education.  The meta-analysis, which looked at over 600 published research papers, found large effects for the use of technology-enhanced simulations for knowledge, skills, and behaviors. 

Many of the papers included in the analysis dealt with surgical procedures, but there were other studies too, including dentistry, communication skills, nursing skills, examination skills, and obstetrics. 

The big limitation with this analysis is that it only looked at studies comparing simulation to no-instruction controls.  It's not surprising that some kind of instructional intervention is better than nothing at all, but this paper can serve as a good resource for those interested in learning more about simulations in medical education. 

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