Introduction - Simulation is the gold standard for training in aviation and trauma medicine. Now it is available for diseases diagnosis and treatment. With simulation, clinicians can practice their art in a realistic, consequence free environment, combining both theory and practice in a comprehensive program. Method and materials - In the virtual clinical environment of "VPsoft mentor" software, the practitioner reviews a patient's history, orders laboratory tests and procedures, interprets findings, renders diagnoses, and prescribes medication. Every diagnostic or treatment decision the clinician makes for the patient is analyzed by E-mentor, providing instant feedback. Results - This software have been used in our academic centre in Arak, as part of residency evidence based learning in a schedule of the small group teaching which, by comparing two groups of case and control, we detected meaningful differences in the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) evaluation scores between them. Discussion / Conclusion - Expert systems-based virtual patient simulation shows promise as a mechanism for assessing practitioner skill, detecting skill gaps and for electronic mentoring. Using CD-based clinical simulations it is possible to augment clinical sciences training globally at low cost with high clinician acceptance, kin order to track improvement over time. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Harbin University of Science and Technology.
