From 19 to 21 June 2024, an international meeting of simulation medicine enthusiasts took place in Prague at the SESAM 2024 conference. The whole congress was held in the spirit of celebrating the European Society for Simulation (SESAM), which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. Join us for a look at this year's congress, which also had the largest ever participation by representatives of the MU Faculty of Medicine, who presented activities related to SIMU and the Institute of Simulation Medicine.
"I actively participated and presented a poster titled "Reshaping Intensive Care Medicine Undergraduate Education: A Curriculum Transformation." The poster generated considerable interest and received positive feedback from the presentation panelists. I also participated in the workshop "Getting Ready for Simulation with Free Virtual Patient Scenarios: Interactive algorithms AKUTNE.CZ". I have been involved in AKUTNE.CZ portal projects for 11 years, so I was interested in this workshop where some of the results of our work are presented. Participation in the conference brought me new knowledge and ideas that will be useful for further improvement of teaching in the field of intensive care medicine."
"Data-driven decision making and experience in its use at LF MU was part of the contribution in the e-poster section. The main aim of the communication was to introduce the participants to the methodological background, which is crucial for the preparation of valid and objective data outputs, and to show real results in practice over the topic of testing students' knowledge using the OSCE method."
"The main point of our participation at SESAM 2024, i.e. active participation with the Challenges of Peer Debriefing workshop, was on the agenda on the very first day of the event. The workshop, led by Tereza Vafkova, MD, and complemented by lecturers Daniel Barvik, MD, and Assoc. Martina Kosinová, enjoyed a full capacity of participants and abundant discussion in all its parts. According to the reflections, the topic is not only relevant undergradually, where the authors of the workshop mainly started from, but also resonates in the postgraduate area. Our next steps were then directed towards enriching our own horizons, both in workshops and in frontal communications. We took in the experiences of colleagues from all over the world with AI, with research in its beginnings and progress, and we also listened intensively to the Czech editor and presenter, Daniel Stach, who passed on his experiences in popularising science. In order to make our further involvement not only passive, we also participated in the semi-final and final simulations of the SimUniversity competition, in which the Czech team from the 3rd Faculty of Medicine of Charles University won the shared first place, and we congratulate them once again!"
"Friday afternoon at the SESAM Annual Meeting was marked by 3D printing. The workshop "3D printing of anatomical models - methods from the collaborative Erasmus+ project ACCEDE (Anatomically aCCuratE 3D modEls)" was held from 13:15 in hall D6. The workshop was to introduce the participants in a practical way 3 key parts of the production of anatomically accurate models. And although the title did not explicitly state it, we prepared a very practical hands-on workshop with colleagues from Slovakia and Germany.
In the beginning of the workshop, the motivation for the use of 3D printing and siliconization in medical education, the Erasmus+ project, the project partners and especially the methodology of 3D model making were presented, summarized for the presentation in the so-called The pipeline. Each step in the pipeline was explained in simple terms and the emphasis was kept on explaining the need for validation and verification of the results (model) before labelling them as accurate and using them in teaching.
The participants, whose number exceeded the maximum capacity of 30, were then divided into 3 groups. Each group occupied a station for segmentation, then scanning and the last station was a demonstration of siliconization. The groups had approximately twenty-five minutes for each station, which was always led by one team. The segmentation presentation was given by the Slovak team, the scanning demonstration by the Czech team and the siliconization demonstration was successfully presented by colleagues from Germany.
All stages presented their method on a very simple anatomical model - the tibia. It was thanks to the matching that it was then possible to discuss, for example, the different results in CT segmentation and from scanning. The bone of a newborn baby was then used for the siliconization, especially to save time.
According to the feedback of the participants, we consider the workshop to be very successful. The participants included people from clinical disciplines and technicians in approximately equal numbers. For some, the techniques demonstrated were eye-opening; for others, the opportunity to share their own knowledge and network their skills with ours was an advantage. The introduction of the PrintAnatomy portal was important!"
"The programme of this year's SESAM conference offered participants the opportunity to visit selected simulation centres in the Czech Republic. Six groups of visitors, professionals from different parts of the world - instructors from the rescue simulation centre in Regensburg, a multidisciplinary team from a private university in Kiev, which is currently operating in Katowice, Poland, teams from Belgium, Thailand and others - took the opportunity to get acquainted with SIMU - to take a two-hour guided tour. All visitors are active in the field of medical simulations, therefore their interest in SIMU equipment and operation, organizational and methodological issues was very lively. Discussions were intense and substantive, in many cases they continued in the following days during the SESAM 2024 conference technical program in Prague. The interest and respect shown by the visitors is a valuable appreciation of the LF MU Simulation Centre project."
"On Wednesday 19 June, the first day of Sesam 2024, I attended a workshop called Generative Artificial Intelligence and Medical Simulation. In the theoretical introduction, the authors presented the general principles and possibilities of generative AI (artificial intelligence). Then we had a discussion about its advantages and applications in everyday and scientific life and, of course, about its disadvantages and pitfalls. Furthermore, the possibilities of using generative AI in medicine and especially in medical simulation were presented. In this context, the authors presented scenarios to simulate patient/parent communication based on generative AI. In the next part of the workshop, we formed groups that could try on their own to conduct a conversation with a virtual patient that was guided by generative AI. The answers and reactions were very fitting. The authors also declare functionality in almost all world languages. Finally, the ethical side of the whole thing was discussed."
This year's SESAM Congress was my very first and I must say that few things surprised me so pleasantly this year. The congress was a hugely inspiring gathering of simulation medicine enthusiasts and innovators from around the world, and it was set up so that you really had the chance to meet and exchange experiences. Several times a day everyone met in the large auditorium for a major lecture - the Key Note Lecture - only to disperse again to smaller halls and classrooms for workshops, symposia, simulations and presentations of short communications or posters.
However, AKUTNĚ.CZ portal was not just an observer, but actively participated in the event! Our workshop on how to turn the AKUTNĚ.CZ interactive algorithm into an educational lesson attracted a full number of participants. They first had the opportunity to try out Problem Based Learning Discussion (PBLD) for themselves as students, when they solved a case of tension pneumothorax after a fall from a bicycle. Authentic videos of the bike accident immediately got their attention and when they saw the rider fly over the handlebars in slow motion, everyone held their breath. But then our virtual patient was out of breath, so we had to intervene. But before they performed thoracocentesis, they had to think about the various aspects of the physical findings and the differential diagnosis of breathlessness. The fact that the patient is virtual just allows them to address deeper layers of knowledge, seeking explanations and reasoning in a team discussion. But after the basic stabilization of the patient, we moved from this activity to looking at the database of virtual patients - the interactive algorithms of AKUTNĚ.CZ. Since there are already over 180 of them, it is not exactly easy to navigate through it. Working in small groups, they chose one of the offered learning objectives (e.g. fever, poisoning, newborns, ECG...) and then tried to find a suitable algorithm that would help them achieve this objective. The last part explained how to "break down" the content of the algorithm into individual questions, broadly covering issues from the perspective of anatomy, histology, physiology, propedeutics, pharmacology, imaging and laboratory diagnostic methods, pathophysiology and epidemiology. They then tried it out in small groups on their chosen algorithms. Finally, participants shared their impressions of the workshop - they gained a whole new perspective on how to create a lesson where students are prepared, engaged and actively collaborating to achieve the learning objectives.
The next day I was very honoured to give a short presentation on Interactive scenarios AKUTNĚ.CZ: open access database of more than 170 virtual patients. My aim was to inform the general teaching public that we have a huge, publicly accessible database of virtual patients in the Czech Republic, which is available to anyone with an internet connection and completely free of charge. I introduced them to what interactive algorithms look like, how to work with them, and how to create them. I was rewarded with a lot of questions from the audience and an appreciation of the immense scope of our work with an emphasis on unrestricted accessibility to the general public.
This year, 55 students received the Dean’s Award in Czech study programs and the Excellence Award in English study programs across several categories. The awards were presented to the students by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at MU, Martin Repko, Vice-Dean Eva Brichtová, and Vice-Dean Lubomír Křivan.
The Surgical Suturing Project was created as a student initiative to teach future doctors basic surgical techniques. After its demise during the pandemic, a group of students decided to passionately revive and expand the project. Today, they form a series of several workshops and the courses are accredited as an elective course for general medicine students at the MU Faculty of Medicine. The courses combine practical skills with innovative learning methods. The teaching takes place in the Simulation Centre of the Faculty of Medicine.
