— This post was written by Arunangsu Chatterjee —

Virtual patients (VP) have been defined as ‘interactive computer simulations of real life clinical scenarios for the purpose of medical and dental training, education or assessment. VP are commonly used to teach clinical interviewing skills, bioethics, basic patient communication, history taking, and clinical decision-making skills.

Through this project a total of 3 VP’s are been designed to be used for in the 2013/14 cohort of dental and medical students within PUPSMD. These are based on real life patient scenarios of dental and medical problems with a multi-disciplinary approach to their management.  They include a maxillary sinus tumour, sinusitis and a large dental cyst.  The patients all first presented to their Medical Practitioner and then referred for a dental opinion.