The national authors’ committee of Practicum Script of Pediatrics has already almost twenty experts. Training of the experts in charge of preparing the 2018-2019 edition of the course – which includes actual clinical cases in this specialty – was delivered over three online seminars. The last seminar was tutored by Dr Jorge Martínez, an attending physician at the Pediatric Department of Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús, in Madrid. According to Dr Martínez, "the goal is to translate to the screen what we do in daily practice."

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Madrid - April 27, 2018. The expert committee for the 2018-2019 edition of Practicum Script of Pediatrics is now formed by a new group of recognized Spanish professors. A total of 19 specialists from Madrid and Barcelona (Spain) received training through three webinars held between March and April this year to become able to identify and define the new clinical cases that will be presented during training. In the next few days, the number of specialists will probably increase to 30. This teaching committee, coordinated by Dr Jorge Martínez, an attending physician at the Pediatrics Department of Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús de Madrid and the Head of Studies and Chairman of the Teaching Committee at the same hospital, is committed to providing practical knowledge to enrich the simulation experience. The online training sessions also included the participation of Drs Eduardo Hornos and Eduardo Pleguezuelos, president and academic secretary of Practicum Institute, respectively.

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Dr. Martinez emphasizes that "the clinical cases correspond to pathologies that are prevalent in both hospital and ambulatory care settings and are assembled from clinical records of actual patients following a strict methodology to promote clinical reasoning." This authors’ committee is considered the first link in a broader chain of interlocutors. The cases are subsequently solved by a committee of validators who individually solve each diagnostic or management challenge, exposing the logical thinking that supports their decisions. After that, the cases undergo an audit process. This approach ensures high quality for the thematic content and coverage by the expert panel of the vast clinical and scientific reality.

As an international program of medical education, the authorship and validation of the clinical cases are carried out by eminent pediatricians chosen according to their professional category, academic profile, and years of practice. In fact, "to become part of Practicum Script’s Expert Committee, the professionals must have at least a decade of practice as specialists and more than eight years of uninterrupted activity, in addition to involvement in residency or graduate programs during the last five years and dedication of fifty percent of their professional time to patient care," emphasizes Dr. Pleguezuelos.

This meeting has provided the finishing touch to an intense work of bringing together outstanding national experts in the areas of Pediatric primary and hospital care. Specifically, the authors’ committee comprises professors from the following university hospitals: Niño Jesús, La Paz, 12 de Octubre, Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona, Gregorio Marañón, San Carlos Clinic and Puerta de Hierro. So far, the committee is formed by Drs. Blanca Herrero, Daniel Clemente Garulo, Enrique Otheo, Enrique Villalobos Pinto, Eva Escribano Cerezuelo, Francisca Romero Andújar, José Tomás Ramos Amador, Julián Lara Herguedas, María Isabel Pescador Chamorro, María Teresa Nieto Reguero, Miguel Ángel Molina Gutiérrez, Noelia González Pacheco, Pablo Rodríguez, Paula Casano, Pedro Rubio Aparicio, Rosa Ana Muñoz Codoceo, Sergio Martínez Álvarez, Verónica Sanz Santiago, and Francisco Javier Ruano.

Contexts of uncertainty

"Contrary to other models, the goal of this tool is not so much the accumulation of knowledge but the application of knowledge to solve clinical cases or, in other words, training of clinical reasoning," said Dr. Pleguezuelos. The pedagogical model that he defends is not focused on teaching but on the participants’ reflective and self-regulated learning and comprises condensed opinions of international experts applying evidence-based medicine when facing complex intellectual challenges in healthcare practice, clinical debate, and a portfolio intended for metacognition.

According to Dr. Hornos, "the key principle of Practicum Script is that there is not a single right answer." Each option is accompanied by arguments and the corresponding literature. In clinical scenarios with substantial disagreement among the decisions of the experts regarding a patient, in particular, the Delphi Method of consensus development is applied. In regards to that, Dr. Martínez has clarified that "the ultimate purpose is to stoke critical judgment and inspire greater confidence and security in decision-making before the patient." In terms of numbers, the learning community of Practicum Script comprises more than 300 international experts, more than 180 Ibero-American validators, and more than 6000 students, with 900 active participants in the Pediatrics course.

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UPDATE. Madrid - May 8, 2018. Carmen de Lucas Collantes, Francisco José Sanz, Lourdes Calleja, Elvira Cañedo, and Ana Lourdes Huertas - all pediatricians at Hospital Universitario Infantil Niño Jesús de Madrid - have joined today the team of professionals integrating the Spanish Authors’ Committee of Practicum Script of Pediatrics for the current course’s edition. A total of 24 leading physicians in this specialty already comprise the selection of specialists.

In this Tuesday’s session, led by Drs. Eduardo Pleguezuelos and Jorge Martínez, academic secretary of Practicum Script and Head of Teaching at the referred hospital, respectively, it was emphasized that the bulk of the work will be controversy. Specifically, Dr. Pleguezuelos has encouraged recent incorporations of work on "problematic situations with dilemmas and complex phenomena." Along this line, he mentioned that "we must focus our attention on competence learning and leave the traditional paradigm of mere transmission of knowledge: less memory and more context."

As a simulator of reflective skills, Practicum Script reproduces the sequence of thought based on cognitive theory. "As if in a flash, I first recognize a diagnosis because I have seen it, then I try to verify or redirect my hypothesis, and finally, reflect on the results obtained and confirm or not my suspicions," explained Dr. Martinez. As the student progresses in solving a case, "the point is to evaluate the impact of new data on a specific clinical scenario," concluded the Niño Jesús professor.