The ER simulation closely followed the Detective Simulation in design. Its purpose was to test whether the findings obtained with undergraduate participants and non-specialized content would extend to a specialized domain (an Emergency Room, with three medical cases) and to relevant experts (ER physicians and advanced medical students). We developed an analogue of the detective task that more closely parallels ER environments. The three patients present with evidence of an upper GI bleed, thyrotoxicosis, and ectopic pregnancy. Participants follow a series of clues/actions, in the form of patients, tests, and tangential activity around each “case.” Because of the limited number of physician participants for this study, we tested only the effects of interruption. In order to create a sufficiently challenging simulation, we set the IE results to cycle in and out of availability for all participants.

One of our primary goals was to determine how well physicians could keep track of suspended goals. Because of this, we could not use goals that could be inferred from experts’ generic knowledge about treatment or diagnostic testing of particular case types. In such a case, any successful follow-up on a previous task could be due to long-term knowledge rather than memory for one’s recent and current actions. Thus, IEs for the ER simulation were typically minor procedural or unrelated details that doctors needed to keep track of.

To download the Emergency Room Simulation, click here. For other supporting programs, such as the Working Memory task and the post-simulation test, please contact Dr. Franklin. (Note that some of these items are programmed in SuperLab, a commercially available experiment software platform.)