Pharmacy Students’ Experiences with an Interactive Video Platform to Develop Clinical Reasoning

Activities used to evaluate clinical reasoning include the use of standardized patients, role play, and case studies. To provide a standardized student experience at a lower cost than a standardized patient, standardized patients were developed using an interactive video platform. The purpose of this article is to report pharmacy students’ perceptions of the interactive video standardized patients used to practice applying clinical reasoning in a self-care therapeutics course. Students participated in the following five methods to assess clinical reasoning: case studies, interactive patient videos, role play, case creation, and Zoom(®) polls. Four of the five methods (case studies, interactive patient videos, role play, and case creation) were used in small breakout groups consisting of two to three students. Upon completion of the small group work, Zoom(®) polls assessed the clinical reasoning of the entire class. Students completed a survey that assessed their level of agreement with 17 statements about the course on a five-point Likert scale and 2 questions that asked the students to rank the activities based on their experiences. There were 127 students that took the self-care therapeutics course, and 112 completed the survey (88%). Overall, the students preferred the Zoom(®) poll activity; however, of the four different methods utilized within the small breakout groups, the findings of our survey indicated that students preferred to receive fully written-out patient cases followed by the interactive patient videos. Additionally, the students thought that the written-out patient cases and interactive patient videos were most efficient for learning and recall. The interactive patient videos may be an alternative activity that allows students to demonstrate and assess their clinical reasoning for each patient case, in addition to seeing how this impacted their patient’s outcome.