Forming decision-making skills with a patient simulator

The Negoplan system has been used to model negotiations and sequential decision-making. The knowledge representation power of Negoplan was expanded to make it also applicable in certain simulation tasks that involve decisions. Negoplan in medical education is a tool for testing and training medical students. The remarkable parallels between negotiation and patient simulation are discussed, this set the stage for the use of Negoplan as a tool for Computer-Aided Instruction in medicine. The new mechanisms implemented in Negoplan are applied to a case study – a Negoplan application that supports the teaching of medical diagnostic skills. This application is used in a project that includes field-testing by medical students. The presented approach and the Negoplan system are general enough to allow simulation of sequential decisions not only in medical education, but also in areas where the simulated entity undergoes changes caused by a sequence of decisions.