Tuesday, 22 June 2021
A research project looking at using virtual patients to reduce errors in diagnosis has received prestigious funding for a PhD programme from the ASME (Association for the Study of Medical Education.
Located at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, the winning project will investigate the effectiveness of personalised self-regulated learning enhanced feedback using virtual patients on clinical reasoning among early medical and physician associate students.
Supervisors include Dr Rakesh Patel and Doctor Christopher Madan at the University of Nottingham, along with Professor John Sandars and Professor Jeremy Brown of Edge Hill University.
It’s a privilege to receive this funding from ASME with our partners from Edge Hill University. ASME Awards support a lot of new and early careers educators and researchers, so it’s great to do our bit within the University by sharing our expertise in medical education, clinical reasoning and developing technology-enhanced learning interventions in this PhD. It’s also great for this award to acknowledge our patient and public involvement partner Isabel Healthcare, who have co-designed our Isabel-EPIFFANY elearning platform with us. We hope this award is another step towards training further healthcare professionals minimise diagnostic error and keeping patients safe in our NHS.”
At its core, the PhD programme aims to improve clinical reasoning among early medical and physician associate students. The chosen candidate will explore how a virtual patient platform helps medical educators assess their students’ clinical knowledge.
They can also identify core self-regulated learning thinking required before, during and after making a diagnosis.
The PhD candidate will have the opportunity to develop the personalised feedback approach used by the platform and investigate how useful it is for both students and teachers. Moreover, they will link this approach to students’ clinical knowledge and core self-regulated learning thinking skills. Over the course of several cases, the researchers hope to be able to connect the relative importance of each component of feedback to the approach’s effectiveness.
ASME Director of Awards Professor Karen Mattick said: “We’re delighted to announce the award of our fourth ASME PhD studentship. This award aims to promote high quality research into medical education and help to secure a career pipeline of talented medical education researchers nationally and internationally.
“The PhD project funded this year explores feedback for early medical and physician associate students on their clinical reasoning and we hope the findings will inform undergraduate health professions education and, ultimately, improve healthcare practice.”
The chosen candidate will receive a stipend, as well as support with the cost of consumables required for the research. ASME will also cover the registration cost to present the work at the Annual Scholarship Meeting
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 32 in Europe and 16th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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