Simulation is a big part of modern medical education.
The idea that you can simulate a case as if it were real is a handy tool in helping you develop your own diagnosis, management and treatment skills.
Resuscitation is an app developed by EM Gladiators where you play the role of the emergency department physician.
This medical simulator is somewhat realistic and gives you a case presentation of a patient.
The user then has various options to take a history, perform a physical exam, form a differential diagnosis and administer therapy to treat the patient’s underlying problem.
There are a range of treatment options available to you and you are scored based on your management skills.
The aim of the app is to develop diagnostic management skills and it facilitates this by giving points for good decisions and removing points for bad decisions. You can play the cases repeatedly to try and raise your score which you can post to Facebook if you choose.
On each case you are scored ranging from student to attending. The app itself is quite addictive and I found myself playing a number of times to try improve. This concept of gamification of healthcare is not a new idea; however, it is good to see it applied in medical simulation examples. When you finally submit your results you are forced to pick a diagnosis and where you would like to admit them. You then get a detailed breakdown of your results and a case discussion.
Resuscitation keeps track of all your attempts to go through the cases and highlights areas of weakness.
The level of detail of the cases is good and there is certainly enough content included with each case. The app is clever as selecting a procedure forces you to interpret it there and then. Some pictures that were included were not of a particularly high resolution which meant interpreting ECGs was challenging.
Price:
- The app itself is free and includes 5 free cases although another 19 can be unlocked with an in-app purchase of $2.99.
Likes:
- Good range of cases which are extremely detailed
- Simulation actively responds to what you do (look at the cardiac monitor)
- Gamification element to try make you improve by posting your score to Facebook
- Breakdown of which actions were critical to help learn the appropriate management
Dislikes:
- Some images are not particularly high resolution
- Only 24 cases and would be nice to have more!
- Would be nice to have guidelines included which show the proper management for each case
Overall
- Overall, resuscitation is a very good app for simulating a case in the ER.
- There are a huge range of options available which will put doctors and medical students to the test.
- Highly recommended for teaching basic emergency department management.
