AWARD. The group of teachers consisting of Josefina Robertson, Frida Rydberg, Marie Studahl, Erika Tyrberg, and Johan Westin have been named the 2022 recipients of the Sahlgrenska Academy Pedagogical Award. They are receiving the award for the virtual hospital, which they began developing when the pandemic stopped clinical training at the infectious disease clinic for medical students.
The award statement notes that the team of teachers has made a highly appreciated and successful contribution to teaching. Their educational efforts have been characterized by enthusiasm and dedication and have stimulated student learning.
‘Infection, microbiology, and the immune system’ is an integrated course in clinical infectious disease medicine, microbiology, and immunology. Medical students take it during their fifth semester and it provides them with some of their first experiences of the hospital environment during their clinical training. Students usually get to see patients together with supervisors at the infectious disease wards, both at the Östra Hospital and at some of the smaller hospitals in the Region Västra Götaland, and monitor patients there during the course.
As realistic as possible
During 2020 spring semester, about a week before the course began, the government announced that all higher education would shift to remote learning. The teaching team had to quickly find a way to replace student work in the ward with a digital solution (an initial version of the virtual hospital) in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.
“We asked our colleagues to share different clinical cases, with information about patient histories, symptom development, lab values, and photos. We then modified the cases for the training situation, making them anonymous, but they are basically real cases,” explains Marie Studahl, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Gothenburg and chief physician at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
“We made an outline of an infectious disease ward, where the students had the experience of being there on a round through the ward, except they were at home in front of a computer screen. We wanted to substitute the onsite clinical training with the most realistic picture possible,” says Doctor Josefina Robertson (ST).
Complement to clinical training
During both the spring and autumn semesters of 2020, students could visit the virtual hospital via Zoom, supervised by experienced ST doctors and specialist doctors at the infectious disease clinic. During the course, students saw the same patients for several days and got to monitor the gradual completion of the clinical picture as new test results arrived and new symptoms emerged.
“Clinical training is a mandatory course component, in which students must participate. The component concluded with a quiz on the patients they met at the virtual hospital. They had to get twenty questions right, but they could re-take the quiz until they passed,” explains specialist doctor Erika Tyrberg.
The virtual hospital received good reviews in the course evaluation, including from students who had to take the entire course virtually.
Many advantages
With the help of an IT designer and a smart programmer, the virtual hospital has now been developed into an online platform, www.virtuellasjukhuset.se. At the start of the course, students can log into the ward and familiarize themselves with the patients staying there before the teacher-led round, which is held either via Zoom or live. Now each patient also has a face, generated by AI.
Johan Westin, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Gothenburg and chief physician at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, sees several advantages of the virtual hospital concept.
“Some infections, such as malaria, don’t come up very often at the infectious disease clinic. By teaching in the virtual hospital, teachers can also tailor our teaching and be sure to include these types of cases, which we want our students to be able to recognize. It can also be very cramped at clinics and difficult at times to find high-quality clinical training placements for students. In that case, a digital solution like this can be a complement to enhance quality.”
Development is underway
There is clear interest from other programs within and outside of Sahlgrenska Academy, which also see significant value in being able to complement clinical training with a virtual element. The digital infectious disease clinic can relatively easily become a department of medicine, a medical clinic, or a gynecology clinic. With support from the Grants and Innovation Office at GU, the teaching team has begun development of the virtual hospital as an innovation that could gradually become a subscription service.
Every year, Sahlgrenska Academy presents the Pedagogical Award to celebrate excellent educational initiatives within the University. The prize is SEK 100,000 in the form of a grant that can be used to cover cost of educational efforts by the award-winners. This year’s nominees were assessed by the Education Council’s standing work group: Gunnar Tobin (convener), Inger Jansson, Thomas Qvist, and Vendela Karlsson (SAKS).
BY: ELIN LINDSTRÖM
