Patient Safety Skills for Medical Students

Simulation for the Evaluation of General Skills in Patient Safety and Quality in Undergraduate Medical Students

In this project, the authors aim to evaluate the use of high fidelity simulation as a method of evaluation of general skills in fifth year medical students about patient quality and safety in a hospital setting.

Undergraduate training in patient safety and healthcare quality is often overlooked by medical curricula.

Simulation techniques have been used in different subjects as a support for learning invasive techniques in surgical areas, but it has not been used to improve knowledge and performance on patient quality domains that would be applied in real life scenarios.

This project is a randomized trial for medical students undertaking the course in "Quality and Patient Safety". The authors will randomized students at the beginning of each rotation into two groups: a) an intervention group (where students will take the simulation and will be evaluated by a final written exam); and b) a control group (where students will take only the usual teaching in classrooms and will be evaluated with the same written exam). Furthermore, students will be asked to fill a questionnaire to obtain their attitudes and knowledge about the topics in quality and safety in healthcare.

Inclusion Criteria:

• 5th year medical students enrolled in the course "Quality and Patient Safety" in the Tecnológico de Monterrey School of Medicine, Campus Monterrey.