Burnett School of Medicine at TCU’s Clinical Skills Team to Present Innovative Geriatric Escape Room at SGEA Conference
The Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University's Clinical Skills department was selected to give an oral presentation about its Geriatric Escape Room activity at the 2024 Southern Group on Educational Affairs (SGEA) conference in Houston.
FORT WORTH – An innovative approach on teaching medical students is getting attention.
The Clinical Skills team at Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University was selected to present its Geriatric Escape Room activity at the 2024 Southern Group on Educational Affairs (SGEA) conference in Houston. The SGEA is a group of medical educators in the region who meet to exchange ideas, information, and promote evidence-based principles of medical education.
“It’s exciting to present something that we are doing different,” said Sandra Esparza, M.D., Director of Clinical Skills at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. “We hope that other schools can also carry this through, so we’re just trying new things that hopefully will benefit the students in the long run.”
The Geriatric Escape Room was created with the safety of the patient in mind and giving first-year medical students the opportunity to learn how to spot potential hazards when treating elderly patients.
“We can talk about hazards, and we can teach them about hazards in a lecture format, but when they’re exposed to an environment, and they can see those real-life situations they can retain it a little better,” Esparza said.
Nico Martinez, MS-1, said one of the reasons he decided to study at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU was its creative approach to learning. “I wanted to join an environment that was doing innovative things that you don’t see elsewhere,” he said.
During the Geriatric Escape Room activity, students walk into a room set up as a patient’s home living environment. They encounter a Standardized Patient (SP) who is trained to act out what could take place during a real patient visit. The SP also offers feedback to the students after the exercise.
“We really value our Standardized Patients,” said Clinical Skills Manager Victoria Dunson, MSN, RN. “We know that they have a huge impact on our students. We want it to be as realistic as possible.”
The Clinical Skills team’s SGEA presentation will focus on piloting this new way of learning as well as trends of gamification in medical education. The SGEA conference will be April 11-13 in Houston.