Educator-to-Educator Tips & Strategies
Find out how your peers are making the most of Aquifer cases and teaching tools.
Find out how your peers are making the most of Aquifer cases and teaching tools.
Effective remediation is essential for maintaining high … Read more
Aquifer has introduced an innovative AI-powered feedbac … Read more
Getting students up to speed in clinic is a common chal … Read more
We all know that every student will have a slightly different experience in each of their supervised clinical practice experiences (SCPEs). At our program, we’ve been using Aquifer cases to augment learning, build key communication skills, and supplement clinical experiences to meet ARC-PA standards.
We all know that every student will have a slightly different experience in each of their supervised clinical practice experiences (SCPEs). At our program, we’ve been using Aquifer cases to augment learning, build key communication skills, and supplement clinical experiences to meet ARC-PA standards.
As the pandemic caused widespread disruption, Aquifer saw an unprecedented jump in the use of our cases–and many innovative ways to use the cases across curricula. Through our grant applications and many ongoing conversations with educators, we were able to identify trends and challenges and gather success stories and strategies to share.
Having just completed my third year of medical school, I can confidently say that Aquifer has been highly useful for my learning. I found that its clinical relevance and stepwise learning process combined to make it a one-of-a-kind learning resource. Here are a few of my recommendations to clinical educators so that students of all medical disciplines can get the most out of Aquifer.
We have integrated Aquifer Geriatrics cases in several different ways throughout our Geriatrics and Healthy Aging Curriculum thread. First-year students have a modified team-based learning session around the Dementia case. In the third year, cases prepare students for oral presentations on rounds…
When the COVID 19 pandemic interrupted our first-year medical students’ longitudinal primary care practicum (PCP), we needed to find an alternative that addressed one of its most important goals: helping students to focus the comprehensive history, exam, and documentation that they’re taught in the clinical skills course into a primary care-appropriate presentation and SOAP note. Our thoughts turned quickly to Aquifer, which is used by our internal medicine and pediatrics clerkships. Many Aquifer cases integrate well with the basic science topics our first-year courses, but most seemed a little too advanced for a mid-first year student. At the same time, senior students were eager to find ways to help, so we decided to combine Aquifer cases with ‘virtual’ peer teaching via videoconference.
Many educators are wondering how to meaningfully engage their students in distance learning activities that create community and allow them to practice important patient care skills (while not seeing patients). While I have been doing peer-to-peer consults with educators around the country about using Aquifer cases in their curriculum, I stumbled into a helpful reframe that seems to be unlocking people’s creativity: Aquifer cases (yep…more than 170 of them!) are virtual standardized patients. Wait…what?