Gamifying Medical Education
Gamifying Medical Education
Gamifying Medical Education
By Jona Byer
The healthcare industry has had to shift to more digital practices in recent years due to changing social habits and global health issues). And one area that is rapidly becoming more digital is medical education. Gamification is becoming a prominent tool in medical education as a means to teach important healthcare skills. It integrates gaming elements into the medical learning process so that students can learn and enjoy through the apps on their mobile devices. Instructors are using gamification to revolutionize medical education, especially when schools switched to remote learning.
Rise of Online Learning and Educational Apps
The demand for online education has been soaring because students are now seeking ways to acquire knowledge and skills for their degrees through an accessible setup. The COVID-19 pandemic has only cemented the importance of remote learning, especially as institutions had to find ways to provide quality education online.
Last year, universities like the Harvard Medical School announced that their first-year medical students would be learning virtually, while returning students were allowed to continue in-person research and clinical training. The school discouraged medical students from deferring, highlighting that their digital education system allowed for collaborative learning.
Online universities offering healthcare degrees are now seen as just as valid as traditional institutions and are being recognized by official bodies. Maryville University’s online nursing degree program is officially recognized by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) despite being 100% online. This means that the online university is acknowledged to have effective educational practices that abide by industry standards. This is one key reason why the digital shift to online education for medical professionals is becoming increasingly popular.
Universities have produced and experimented with various online tools and applications to provide quality education through a remote setup. One of the strategies that medical schools have invested in are gamification applications, which allows students to acquire skills and retain information through their mobile devices or computers. Educators and game developers often work hand-in-hand to design game-based applications that integrate lessons and courses with gaming elements and principles. These games are developed to help students achieve their learning outcomes, while providing game feedback that can easily help them measure their progress and competencies.
Benefits of Gamification in Medical Education
Gamification design is efficient in both engaging and motivating the medical students to learn. Rewards and badges are just some of the gaming elements that instructors and game developers use to encourage students to study through gamification. James H. Willig, MD and his colleagues from the University of Alabama Birmingham infused this scoring feature in their online multiple-choice quiz game called Kaizen. This game was created to assess the students’ clinical knowledge in internal medicine, and it rewards students with bonus points whenever they progress to harder levels and take time to answer quizzes every day. These rewards and badges do not only serve as a measurement of their skill and diligence, it also serves as an extrinsic motivation for students to reach specific goals.
Healthcare students can also learn beyond question and answer games through simulation games. Developed by Schell Games and Deepika Mohan, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Night Shift is a story-driven adventure game that allows users to manage patients in emergency rooms. Users experience very realistic scenarios and can even witness patients suffer and pass away if they misdiagnose. These role-play games are important in training students for triage, patient interaction, and disease management in a low-stakes environment so that they are more skilled and prepared for actual cases.
Medical students also use gamification to improve their recall of information. Games and apps for medical education are often integrated with text, auditory, and visual cues that enhances retention. Anki Flashcards is an app that medical students often use for this purpose. This game uses analytics to track each questions’ difficulty and promotes retention by featuring tough questions more frequently.
Gamification is one of the learning strategies that bridges the gaps of remote medical education. These games do not replace the education and skills that first-hand patient interactions can offer, but they are certainly effective in motivating students through enhancing their learning experience.
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