TaskMaster: The Subintern Adventure Game—Game-Based Learning for Medical Subintern Task Prioritization

Abstract

Introduction The medical subinternship (also known as an acting internship) offers postclerkship medical students an opportunity for significant professional development. However, the skills required of a successful subintern—efficiency, patient triage, and advanced organization—are distinct from skills generally refined during the medicine clerkship. Few published curricula exist to prepare postclerkship students for success in this new role. To address this training gap, we introduced a novel tabletop role-playing game to equip medical subinterns with the necessary skills to deliver safe and efficient patient care. Methods We created an hour-long game-based learning session for rising internal medicine and family medicine subinterns. Led by a single facilitator, students worked together to triage and complete tasks in a gamified simulated environment of a morning on the wards. To assess the session, we surveyed participants (N = 130) immediately after activity completion. Results Eighty-three participants completed the postactivity survey, for a response rate of 64%. A majority of students agreed that TaskMaster: The Subintern Adventure Game met its educational goals of increasing comfort with task prioritization, organization, and patient triage. Ninety-three percent of respondents (77 of 83) either agreed or strongly agreed that they felt more prepared to be a covering provider for patients after the activity. Participants also reported high engagement with the activity. Discussion Leveraging the interactivity, teamwork, and contextualized practice of game-based learning can offer low-cost and adaptable opportunities to teach higher-order clinical skills and increase preparedness for the subinternship.

Keywords

• Board Games
• Game-Based Learning
• Gamification
• Competency-Based Medical Education (Competencies, Milestones, EPAs)
• Games