Improving the final year medical students' emergency department consultation request skills by online simulation practices

Importance of non-technical skills education has been recognized in the medical field recently. Communication, as a component of these skills, is a critically important one in complex environments, such as emergency departments (EDs), to ensure patient safety. ED consultations are one of the key areas where communication skills need to be used effectively. The present study aimed to teach final year medical students to request consultation in EDs. It is designed as delivering and assessing a simulation-based education module in embedded participants. One group pre-test/post-test experimental design in method is used in 38 final year medical students at who are required to complete a mandatory ED rotation at Yıldırım Beyazıt University School of Medicine between November-December 2020. A didactic consultation training is first provide to the group, followed by a scenario based assessment, based on the Kessler's 5C framework. In the next phase an embedded participant has provided a simulation-based consultation request training and a scenario-based assessment conducted. Evaluations based on 5C check lists showed that the assessment score following simulation-based training was significantly higher than that of didactic-only training. Study results suggest that communication skills for consultation during undergraduate medical education can be improved by using a simulation-based education model.