Learning and clinical reasoning experience of second-year medical pharmacology students and teachers with virtual patients developed using OpenLabyrinth

Objective: To determine the perceived usefulness of a virtual case scenario developed and delivered through the OpenLabyrinth platform among medical students and teachers. Methods: 20 second-year medical students and 12 teachers of pharmacology were invited to complete a virtual case scenario exercise. The participants accessed the case scenario using their laptops or mobile devices. Participants’ feedback was obtained using the electronic virtual patient consortium-developed questionnaire. Results: 19 students and 12 teachers provided feedback. All the faculty members and 95% of students felt that they had to make the same decisions a doctor would have to make in real life; ‘authenticity of patient encounter’ received the highest percentage of positive responses and ‘the learning effect’ the least. Conclusions: The feedback obtained suggests that virtual case scenarios are likely to be well received by students and teachers. The availability of open-source software enables the use of this technology in resource-limited settings.