Page 244 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education

Manuel Lillo-Crespo

that try to show real scenarios and performing to the maximum the reality
of health organizations and other settings where interactions between pro-
fessionals and patients happen with relation to health and illness, has been
for many years the gold standard of the health professions’ formal education
before students could put one step into real practice settings. However, these
simulated environments usually represent only one social and cultural realli-
ty, mainly the one of the context. The reflection at this point should make us
wonder who decided the characteristics of such rooms for simulation, what
those individuals had in mind and from what cultural perspective.
Even though today we tend to think that online courses refer only to ed-
ucational programs or classes that are primarily delivered over the internet,
progress is demonstrating to us that digital simulation in different forms is
much complex than this and may contribute as positively as the traditional
real face-to-face simulation avoiding important expenses such as the invest-
ment in resources that unfortunately have a quite short timeline and only
represent one context, usually the typical one for that audience. However
one improvement that has arisen in relation with the latest digital simulation
initiatives has to do with the provision of social and cultural scope, something
that exists and happens in real life and previous experiences had not taken
into account so far. Our students used to be trained even in simulation with
just one cultural perspective, one context and in many cases with just one
professional view. Nevertheless the social and cultural perspectives stress the
provision of important insights and views regarding gender perspective, age
perspective, cultural and ethnic perspective, inclusivity and recognition of
other gender identities, realities and life experiences, as well as the inclusion
of vulnerable populations, far away from the traditional clinical-based simu-
lation style mainly focused on the physical perspective of health and stand-
ard population, and being nearer the person-centred and holistic trends.
Therefore, governance of data and digital technology use is a key lesson
learned from the pandemic. It has been demonstrated that it is necessary to
establish and update digital health platforms. Having well-articulated prin-
ciples, standards and governance of data and digital technologies during
pandemics and other health emergencies is vital to ensure that trust is estab-
lished in their use and, in turn, for the delivery of an effective and proportion-
ate public health response. Accountability and oversight mechanisms need
to be included as part of good governance, in addition to the monitoring
and evaluation of the public health impact. The role of publicly owned digital
platforms should be strengthened to ensure public trust in and security of
public data. In fact, COVID-19 has had a crippling effect on the health care

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