Bots versus bodies: building better communication skills in dental students

Background: Communication skills in undergraduate dental education are assessed with Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) which require students to interact with an actor/simulated patient (SP). This teaching modality can be limited by cost and availability. The development of a ‘virtual patient’ (VP) through Artificial Intelligence (AI) can overcome thesechallenges and provide alternative method of teaching, practising and assessing these skills.
Context: Using Large Language Model AI, a ChatBot designed to imitate a patient was developed alongside an animated avatar.
Students engage with the avatar onscreen to practice history taking and clinical reasoning skills. The utility of the ChatBot was piloted with six dental students from Queen’s University, Belfast and will now be implemented into undergraduate curriculum.
Aims: This project aims to:
• Assess if VPs can be used to develop communication/clinical reasoning skills
• Compare VP with traditional SP methods
• Evaluate the student experience of VPs
• Explore the gamification of VPs
Study Design: Phase one involves 1st-3rd year students, split into two groups. Group one will complete a session with a human simulated patient while group two use the VP. Both groups complete a qualitative feedback questionnaire, and their
communication skills will be assessed and compared through an OSCE-type station. Groups will then swap to experience the other session and give further feedback. Phase two explores VP ‘gamification’ involving 4th and 5th year students. In pairs, one student will input a case for the second to interact with the AI and work out the diagnosis. The first student can then critique their partner, and staff can review the transcript to provide further feedback.
Results: Preliminary qualitative pilot results support the use of VPs for teaching and practising communication skills. Feedback showed students felt the VP cases need more information and complexity. They also found that the VP gave too much
information away with little prompting. The ChatBot has been modified based on these findings and will be retested with more students in December 2024. Definitive results will be offered at the conference.
Discussion: VPs are recognised as valuable teaching and learning adjuncts in other healthcare disciplines, but their potential in dentistry has not yet been fully realised. Through the ‘Bots versus Bodies’ study, we seek to address this gap and deliver
a teaching experience that embraces technology and offers flexibility in learning with unlimited, offsite communication skills practice.