Finding the right balance: student perceptions of using virtual simulation as a community placement.

Finding appropriate community clinical placements has been challenging in recent years, most especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2020-2021 semesters, a university in the province of Alberta, Canada chose to use the community health virtual simulation program, Sentinel City®3.1, to provide clinical placements for three groups of undergraduate students. This expository paper, co-authored by students and faculty, sought to further explore how virtual simulation can be used to best support student learning by identifying practices that students find most helpful. Jeffries' (2005) simulation framework was used to guide a quality improvement analysis which explored feedback received from 16 students regarding the use of Sentinel City®3.1 as a clinical placement, with additional contributions from the student co-authors. Students felt Sentinel City®3.1 was an effective tool to learn community and population health concepts, however, all students indicated that they would have preferred more opportunities to work with real communities. Virtual simulation programs like Sentinel City®3.1 might be best as a learning supplement rather than as students' sole clinical placement experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]