Cinemeducation to teach patient safety: an experience in medical students

From early in medical school, students need to learn about patient safety, and how to prevent and reduce risks, errors and harm that occur to patients during health care provision. Cinemeducation is a teaching methodology that uses fragments of feature films or TV series in medical education. We hypothesized that cinemeducation could help simplify the comprehension of complex situations for students, aiding in the learning of patient safety and the understanding of human behaviors that impact it. This concept stands as an integral component within a comprehensive medical humanities approach. The study population was the 70 medical students of the second course of a six-year undergraduate program. In a 2-h class, after learning objectives were established, students watched a fragment from TV series The Resident centered on adverse events, and discussed them afterward. To measure learning achievements, we administered a 10-question multiple-choice pre and post-test and a 2-question open-essay post-test. Given the complexity of the concepts related to patient safety, we used a mixed quali-quantitative approach. An exploratory descriptive and content analysis was performed. Sixty-eight students participated and completed the questionnaires. Despite high pre-intervention scores, post-intervention scores improved (mean difference 0.779, 95% CI: 0.475–1.083, p < 0.001). The open-essay questions provided more information about the learning points, mostly related to the understanding of system error and preventive measures against adverse events. Classical teaching methods may be insufficient for learning how to deal with complex situations in hospital contexts. Our results show that cinemeducation may significantly improve learning on patient safety. Cinemeducation methodology can be effective in teaching some complex concepts in medical education. The integration of cinemeducation within medical education, through the lens of medical humanities, offers a dynamic approach to teaching patient safety. By using cinematic narratives to explore intricate medical scenarios, students engage with real-world complexities and the influence of human factor, enhancing their understanding.