Model Driven Simulators from the Clinical Instructor’s Perspective

Abstract

The clinical instructor is facing several challenges when designing and teaching a full-scale simulator based course. As an educator, he or she has to define learning objectives, select or program scenarios that simulate a case that helps meet these objectives, and sometimes define a simulated patient that is more suited to meet a particular objective than the ones already provided by colleagues or by the simulator manufacturer. Knowing the strengths and limitations of these relatively new teaching tools is part of the challenge. Adding strength as well as challenge is the fact that in many educational simulations of human physiology and pharmacology, mathematical models have taken over the role of “simulation engine” from pre-selected (“scripted”) vital signs. One advantage of such models is that they can take into account gradual variations of multiple management variables. Another advantage is that they can be made to reflect interactions between physiological subsystems, such as the ventilation and the circulation. A potential shortcoming of using mathematical models in educational simulations is complexity.