Gamification and medical doctors’ education: a progress to be considered

How gamification give us many possibilities and the chance to choose that we can be

Gamification is something that’s developed always more recently but has become more persistent in our lives. It can be used in every field, like in medicine, schools, work. Let’s think about how we can learn, thanks to gamification: it’s more stimulating and people have the chance to improve their skills. It’s also a big opportunity for those who don’t have normal cognitive capacities and can help them to integrate not only culturally, but also socially.

Gamification in the education of medical doctors and not only

Let’s focus on the role of gamification in education for all the medical doctors and the ones who are still practicing. In the last century they had to become effective medical doctors, just to understand how to be concretely medical doctors. Students and new medical doctors had to practice on died people, and, for this reason, it wasn’t the same thing.

Gamification gives a sense of accomplishment and progress, giving the chance to learn actively and functionally. An example is the one of the escape rooms. Espace rooms are places where we can simulate one situation, that can be real or unrealistic. In this case, if used seriously, the escape room is a tool to improve all the subjects that are more practical, like anatomy and pharmacology. Let’s think about what happens in an operating room, where a team working is required; so medical doctors and the ones who are practicing can learn and improve their skills. It’s like they are living a real situation, and it can be useful to evaluate their work, with missions and grades.

But…

On the other hand, gamification must not be considered as a replacement for traditional learning, but only something that can help as a supplement. It should be designed well; to help to learn completely and it could include really high costs for its realization. Moreover, it could be seen as “not serious enough”, that’s not a positive aspect in medical terms.

Gamification is always a good tool for learning, but it must be used in the right way from the right mentality.

Written by Federica Egidia Nato