Games in Higher Education: Opportunities, Expectations, Challenges, and Results in Medical Education

Abstract

Medical knowledge has increased exponentially in the last decades. Healthcare professionals face a lifetime challenge in keeping abreast with current medical education. Continuing Medical Education (CME) is an ongoing challenge. Traditional adult education, largely used in medical training, shows little effectiveness. Problem-based-learning has been proposed as a student-centred pedagogy to overcome failure of traditional medical instruction. In this chapter, the authors review the status quo of medical education, certification, and recertification in Europe. A summary of the history of simulation in medical education is presented. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using video games for educational purposes. This is also true for medical education. The use of serious games in medical education is reviewed, and its integration in medical curricula is discussed. The efforts to raise awareness of policy makers are described. Finally, a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of these technologies as well as a proposal to overcome some of its limitations are made.