Objective: The purpose of this study is to prepare fourth-year medical students to recognize psychiatric emergencies using simulation technology. The learning experience is accomplished during the boot camp activity designed to train fourth-year medical students in different competencies before transitioning to residency.
Methods: Ninety-eight fourth-year medical students at Paul L. Foster School of Medicine participated in the boot camp during the 2018-2019 academic year. The participation of the Department of Psychiatry was for a total of four full days divided into 3-h morning and 3-h afternoon sessions with the average of four students per hour per session. The use of high-fidelity simulation and standardized patients to recreate two different clinical scenarios representing acute psychiatric emergencies, followed by structured debriefing, was implemented. Pre- and post-qualitative surveys, which were electronically available via Qualtrics, intended to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum and course teaching modalities during the boot camp.
Results: All participants reported improvement on levels of confidence in diagnosis and management of psychiatric emergencies compared with baseline. Overall a statistically significant increase in the Likert score was noted in the post-survey analysis.
Conclusions: Teaching psychiatric emergencies utilizing high-fidelity simulation and standardized patient encounters improved student confidence in several competencies. The increase in student confidence can potentially help the learner in transitioning better to residency.
Keywords: Boot camp; Medical students; Psychiatric education; Psychiatry emergencies; Simulation; Structured debriefing.
© International Association of Medical Science Educators 2020.