Escape Room in Medical Education: Necessity and Strategies to Overcome the Potential Challenges

Introduction In the field of medical education, escape rooms have been acknowledged as one of the innovative and engaging teaching–learning methods that have changed the way in which medical education is delivered to students using conventional approaches.[1] Escape rooms refer to the realistic simulated scenarios that are systematically designed by the educators for the students in enclosed physical spaces, wherein they are expected to resolve the assignments (that are developed in the form of riddles or puzzles) in a prespecified time frame.[2] These scenarios are designed in such a way that they mirror clinical situations that students will face in their future clinical practice, wherein students must work in coordination with other health team members to make critical decisions that too within a defined time.[3] Escape Rooms: What Do They Add? Unlike conventional teaching–learning methods, an escape room is an innovative approach to ensure learning among medical students by providing them with an immersive learning experience. As students get an opportunity to actively engage in simulated real-life scenarios, it becomes a source of long-term learning.[4] Considering that 2–8 students together participate in the assignment given in the escape room, it encourages teamwork and improves communication between team members.[3] Moreover, as students must solve the given puzzles or riddles in the escape room within the given timeframe, they become time-sensitive, which is very much essential to preparing medical doctors for future emergencies.[5] In continuation, these escape rooms prepare students for high-pressure situations, as they must think and act promptly to solve the given assignment, which is very much relevant and practical in the modern era of clinical practice. While navigating through the given problems, students acquire critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are not easily achievable with traditional methods. Escape rooms can be modified to suit different learning objectives and thus students can alter their skill levels or learn the skill to adapt to the changing clinical scenarios.[5] Identified Challenges and Potential Solutions With the constant evolution of the health sector, and multiple merits attributed to escape rooms, there is an immense need to integrate them in medical education delivery.[2,3] However, a wide range of challenges have been identified that can significantly impact the seamless conduct of escape rooms, as enumerated in Table 1. The presence of an engaging storyline and relevant scenarios is a must; otherwise, students will not actively engage in such activities and all efforts will go to waste.[2] Continuing with scenarios, the presence of ethical issues (namely, scenarios being ethically insensitive) can significantly minimize the extent of engagement, and this calls for the need to get them validated by ethical experts.[2] In addition, in all the designed scenarios, any irregularities with regard to allocated time (such as too little or too more time) can again impact the effectiveness of escape rooms.[4,5] In continuation, the posed challenges to the students should not be too difficult, as it might overwhelm them and reduce their interest in the activities.[2-4]Table 1: Identified challenges and potential solutionsConclusion Escape rooms in medical education have the potential to encourage critical thinking, promote teamwork, develop problem-solving skills, and ensure that students remain motivated to learn. However, a broad range of challenges pertaining to different components of escape rooms can influence their overall impact, and this calls for the need to be more systematic and organized. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.