Abstract
Background: Numerous instructional methods are used in medical education, including interactive lectures, problem-based learning (PBL), case-based learning, and bedside teaching. Bedside teaching provides students with a real-life experience interacting with patients. Therefore, researchers have been working to create computer programs with virtual patients (VPs) that simulate live patients, which aim to improve medical student clinical reasoning skills without the need of live patients. Aims: To study the perception of medical students at King Saud University (KSU) of the Diagnostic Reasoning program (DxR) as a learning tool in the hybrid curriculum. Study Design: Cross-section study conducted at the College of Medicine, KSU, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia using qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. Methods: The data was collected from third, fourth, and fifth year medical undergraduate students of both genders, from November 2014 until March 2015. Results: The results were divided into ten categories according to five themes: learning, specialty, assessment, authenticity, and implementation. In correlation with our reviewed literature, one of the primary targets of virtual patients is to stimulate relative thinking and problem solving. The students claimed that it was an enjoyable experience that allowed them to practice their skills in history taking, physical examination, ordering investigations and treating accordingly. It was also found that student satisfaction increased relative to the number of cases they attempted (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The study evaluates the medical students' perception of DxR in the system-based hybrid curriculum at KSU. Our findings show that DxR leads to positive knowledge and skill outcomes. Students believed that further DxR training workshops should be implemented in order to improve software usage.