The tools and techniques making virtual patient simulations more realistic than ever

Patient simulations have been a key tool for educating physicians in some form for hundreds of years – and now cutting-edge technologies are helping them become more realistic and informative than ever. Medscape’s Martin Warters tells us more.

Learning from a textbook can only take you so far, and when doctors need to put theory into practice in a safe environment, they often turn to patient simulations that use a case study approach to emulate real life clinical scenarios.

Modern day recognisable simulations have been used in medical education since the 18th century and have evolved into realistic and medically accurate physical and digital solutions designed to allow learners to simulate a scenario-based encounter with a patient in a safe environment.

This has ultimately led to the development of virtual patient simulations (VPS), which have become one of the most impactful ways clinicians can learn.

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