The Virtual Patient Technology for Medical Education

Dear Colleagues,

One of the main tasks that physicians carry out is diagnosing patients, which is crucial to obtain an adequate explanation for the disease process in an operational way that allows differential diagnosis, increasing the probability of coming to a correct diagnosis and excluding others and, in this way, establishing the path for the application of treatments according to state of the art in medicine. This approach should consider disease-related issues and the patient’s characteristics and thus requires adequate communication. It is important this is carried out in an adequate time frame, avoiding unnecessary interventions and considering patient safety.

Although clinical case discussion has been present in medical teaching and training since immemorial times, today, technology allows the use of computers and other devices to enhance training and improve clinical reasoning, diagnosis quality, and patient safety.

Virtual patient technology can also simulate patients in several ways, facilitating training, reducing the need for real patient exposure, and providing adequate casuistic and standardized presentations.

Virtual patients can be presented in many forms and used for most of the components of the usual patient approach: history and physical examination, complementary testing, and even response to treatment. Virtual patient scenarios can be simple to complex and may include variations.

The use of artificial intelligence and education sciences can further contribute to increasing the relevance and impact of training using virtual patient technology. Indeed, in recent years, we have witnessed significative development in this area, and many medical schools have incorporated or are in the process of incorporating virtual patient technology in the medical curriculum.

Prof. Dr. Miguel Castelo-Branco
Prof. Dr. Ichiro Kaneko
Guest Editors

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• virtual patient
• clinical reasoning
• patient safety
• simulation
• communication