Virtual Patient Challenge, the most exciting clinical competition at EMSA Spring Assembly 2019. Medical students from 13 countries competed on a three-day event.
“Mistakes are welcome and feeling a little anxious helps participant to learn better”. These were two of the house rules that the Body Interact team established for the Virtual Patient Challenge at the European Medical Students Association (EMSA) Spring Assembly in Heidelberg, Germany. The three workshops promoted by the clinical simulator were attended by fifty medical students from all over Europe.
In the opinion of the Italian EMSA Team, “the biggest challenge was the time to act fast and effectively”. However, for the Antwerpian EMSA Team it was difficult to “integrate all the knowledge with the decisions that needed to be taken”. Nevertheless, they recognize they “still need to train”, so they were “happy it was only virtual patients”.
As the competition went by the participants started to recognize that the competition’s aim went far beyond than just wining. “It was also an amazing experience” because it helped people to “learn how to work as a team”, Italian EMSA team explains. Moreover, Antwerpian EMSA team also highlighted it as an “opportunity to cooperate with other students from different locations and studies-year”.
From April 24th to 29th medical students from 13 different countries were challenged to participate on a clinical competition where each team had to solve two clinical cases per round and the highest scored group received a two-month Body Interact license with a mix of clinical cases.
