Supporting Health Professions Education with Virtual Simulations: The Role of Technical, Educational, and Affective Factors in Assessing Opportunities and Challenges

Simulations are a core part of undergraduate and postgraduate health professions education (HPE; e.g., medical and nursing students, medical residents). Not only are simulations formally embedded in the Canadian health professions curriculum, but they are a safe learning environment for HPE students to move from remembering and understanding to applying health professions knowledge and skills in authentic contexts. Virtual simulations provide HPE students the opportunity to practice running through healthcare procedures in a game-like environment without the need for physical and human resources. In this chapter, we will introduce virtual simulations and discuss opportunities, challenges, and roles that virtual simulation technology can play in HPE simulation education by drawing on our experience implementing virtual simulation technology into nursing and medical students’ formal simulation training at McGill University. Our discussion centers on technical, educational, motivational, and emotional factors that are helpful to consider. We provide a special focus in this chapter on the valuable role that virtual simulation technology can play as distance learning tools which is the context we used this technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.