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Dear Editor
Cultivating medical talents who are quick-witted and agile in thinking is a priority issue for analog medicine reform. Medical education has been lacking in medical improv style training for medical students.[1-3] Talent training programs need to undergo top-level design and reform.
Breaking Free from Rigid Training
Medical students need to have the ability to deal with different patients and communicate well with them. Standardized training that relies on medical models tends to ignore the individual characteristics of the patient, and medical students are prone to programmed thinking. Applying standardized patient (SP) to simulated medical teaching, OSCE examinations, and clinical skills competitions is an effective way to develop medical improv training for medical students. SP can accurately simulate the disease characteristics, psychological processes and emotional flow of different “patients”, which improves medical students' ability to improvise, communicate and resist pressure in a flexible and changing clinical situation. At the same time, the content of students' social practice activities such as volunteering for early clinical practice in the community during holidays, and participating in public welfare social activities outside the classroom should be designed into the talent training program.
Silent Sustenance: The Compassionate Care in Healthcare Contexts
Constructing a stepped path to cultivate humanistic literacy in the simulated medical education system is a feasible path. lower-grade medical students' career orientation training can be offered in introductory courses such as “History of Medicine” and “Medical Ethics”. Incorporating diverse teaching strategies such as the narrative medicine paradigm and contextual reconstruction of the doctor-patient relationship during the advanced stage of clinical skills development can facilitate the internalization and transfer of medical humanistic care. In addition, the subtle cultivation of humanistic literacy outside the classroom is indispensable, and the teaching management department should formulate credits for students' extracurricular humanistic social practice activities.
References
1. Mansuri N. Medical improv: the training we have been missing. BMJ. 2025 Mar 14;388:r510. doi: 10.1136/bmj.r510. PMID: 40086823.
2. Jianzhong Yin, Yunzhi Yang, Teng Zhang, Jialin Mei. The BMJ Rapid Response: Practical Skills among Medical Students: Triple Challenges in Transitioning from Simulation to Real-world Practice. https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2811/rr-2 (Published 07 March 2025)
3. Jianzhong Yin, Yunzhi Yang, Teng Zhang, Jialin Mei, Jiajun Zhang. The BMJ Rapid Response: Reinventing Simulation-Based Medical Education: How Should Educators Adapt? https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2811/rr-3 (Published 14 March 2025)
Competing interests:
No competing interests
17 March 2025
Jianzhong Yin
Professor
Yunzhi Yang（Clinical Skills Training Center, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China）; Jiajun Zhang（Chuxiong Medical College, chuxiong, china）; Jialin Mei（Baoshan People's Hospital, Baoshan, China）; Liu fei Gao（The Second People’s Hospital of Qujing , qujing, china） Teng Zhang（Baoshan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Baoshan, China）
School of Public Health, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
School of Public Health, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
Breaking Free from Rigid Training: How to Cultivate Medical Students’ Quick Reflexes and Sharp Diagnostic Skills?
Dear Editor
Cultivating medical talents who are quick-witted and agile in thinking is a priority issue for analog medicine reform. Medical education has been lacking in medical improv style training for medical students.[1-3] Talent training programs need to undergo top-level design and reform.
Breaking Free from Rigid Training
Medical students need to have the ability to deal with different patients and communicate well with them. Standardized training that relies on medical models tends to ignore the individual characteristics of the patient, and medical students are prone to programmed thinking. Applying standardized patient (SP) to simulated medical teaching, OSCE examinations, and clinical skills competitions is an effective way to develop medical improv training for medical students. SP can accurately simulate the disease characteristics, psychological processes and emotional flow of different “patients”, which improves medical students' ability to improvise, communicate and resist pressure in a flexible and changing clinical situation. At the same time, the content of students' social practice activities such as volunteering for early clinical practice in the community during holidays, and participating in public welfare social activities outside the classroom should be designed into the talent training program.
Silent Sustenance: The Compassionate Care in Healthcare Contexts
Constructing a stepped path to cultivate humanistic literacy in the simulated medical education system is a feasible path. lower-grade medical students' career orientation training can be offered in introductory courses such as “History of Medicine” and “Medical Ethics”. Incorporating diverse teaching strategies such as the narrative medicine paradigm and contextual reconstruction of the doctor-patient relationship during the advanced stage of clinical skills development can facilitate the internalization and transfer of medical humanistic care. In addition, the subtle cultivation of humanistic literacy outside the classroom is indispensable, and the teaching management department should formulate credits for students' extracurricular humanistic social practice activities.
References
1. Mansuri N. Medical improv: the training we have been missing. BMJ. 2025 Mar 14;388:r510. doi: 10.1136/bmj.r510. PMID: 40086823.
2. Jianzhong Yin, Yunzhi Yang, Teng Zhang, Jialin Mei. The BMJ Rapid Response: Practical Skills among Medical Students: Triple Challenges in Transitioning from Simulation to Real-world Practice. https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2811/rr-2 (Published 07 March 2025)
3. Jianzhong Yin, Yunzhi Yang, Teng Zhang, Jialin Mei, Jiajun Zhang. The BMJ Rapid Response: Reinventing Simulation-Based Medical Education: How Should Educators Adapt? https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2811/rr-3 (Published 14 March 2025)
Competing interests: No competing interests