Trapped as a Group, Escape as a Team: Applying Gamification to Incorporate Team-building Skills Through an ‘Escape Room’ Experience

Abstract

Medical education has changed focus to a more learner-centred model, placing learners at the centre of innovations in training. The escape room is one such innovative learner-focused activity, in which a team of players cooperatively discover clues, solve puzzles and complete tasks in order to progress through the challenge to achieve a specific goal. Escape rooms can be used in medical education as a tool for team building, an entertaining way of delivering technical and non-technical skills, to read and acquire or refresh knowledge, as well as for educational research. Despite appearing to be a superficial form of entertainment, escape rooms can be grounded in sound educational theory and, when used effectively, act as a low-cost, high-impact resource for a variety of learners. While escape rooms may well be an example of yet another educational 'fad' demonstrating the rising influence of 'Millennial MedEd', it signals a promising shift to more learner-centred, team-based methods which are essential to the practice of safe modern healthcare during the current COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.