Anita Douglas Shadow Health Assessment

Anita Douglas, a fictional character used in educational simulations, represents a 72-year-old Black woman who is featured across various levels of healthcare training scenarios. These simulations, offered for both graduate and undergraduate students, aim to provide immersive learning experiences in clinical decision-making and leadership within healthcare settings.

In the graduate-level Dynamic Clinical Experiences (DCEs), Anita plays a role in scenarios focusing on Advanced Pharmacology and Advanced Diagnostics. Within these simulations, students are presented with complex medical cases, including Anita’s, where she experiences symptoms such as fatigue and weakness that significantly impact her daily activities. Unfortunately, her complaints are often dismissed by healthcare providers as merely a consequence of her age, highlighting a prevalent issue of ageism in healthcare.

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Ageism, the discrimination or prejudice against individuals based on their age, is a significant concern in healthcare settings. Research, such as that by Levy et al. (2018), emphasizes that ageism can adversely affect the quality of care provided to older adults, leading to increased prevalence of health conditions and inflated healthcare costs. Moreover, older individuals from minority backgrounds, like Anita, are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, facing challenges such as delayed access to care and inadequate communication with healthcare providers, as noted by Rhee et al. (2019).

In the graduate simulations, students are tasked with navigating these complex dynamics, ensuring they remain cognizant of implicit biases related to race, gender, and age that may influence their clinical decision-making process. By recognizing and addressing these biases, students can strive for more equitable and effective patient care.

In addition to the graduate-level simulations, Anita also features in an undergraduate Leadership DCE, set in Shadow General Hospital. Here, students are presented with a multi-day scenario where they must manage care for Anita and other patients, applying various leadership principles such as prioritization, delegation, ethics, change management, and patient advocacy.

For Anita, this means addressing her specific healthcare needs while also respecting her autonomy and preferences. For instance, if Anita expresses a desire to ambulate independently and requests education on physical therapy to prevent future falls, students must leverage their leadership skills to balance her goals with her medical requirements.

These educational simulations, developed by Shadow Health, provide students with valuable opportunities to enhance their clinical and leadership competencies in a safe and immersive learning environment. By engaging with diverse patient cases like Anita’s, students can develop the skills necessary to deliver compassionate, patient-centered care while also challenging and overcoming biases that may impact healthcare delivery.

Anita Douglas Shadow Health Assessment

Anita Douglas is a 72-year-old Black woman who appears in both advanced and beginner healthcare simulations. In the graduate-level simulations, she’s part of scenarios involving advanced medicine and diagnosis for students pursuing higher degrees. In one scenario, Anita faces issues like feeling tired and weak for months, which affect her daily life. Unfortunately, her symptoms are brushed off as just being old.

When dealing with older patients like Anita, students need to be careful not to show any unconscious bias related to age. This is important because ageism, or discrimination based on age, can affect how well someone is cared for, the number of health problems they have, and how much healthcare costs. Moreover, older people from minority backgrounds often face even more discrimination, leading to delays in treatment and poor communication. In these virtual practice sessions, students must be aware of how their biases about race, gender, and age might affect how they interpret a patient’s symptoms during the diagnostic process. They also need to think about potential risk factors when deciding on a diagnosis.

In another simulation for undergraduate students, Anita is one of five patients they must care for over three days at Shadow General Hospital. Here, students need to apply various leadership skills such as prioritizing tasks, delegating responsibilities, handling ethical dilemmas, managing changes, and speaking up for patients. For Anita specifically, this involves assessing her condition to ensure she gets the best care possible. For example, if Anita, who has a hip injury and has been in the hospital for three days, wants to walk on her own and learn about physical therapy to prevent falls, students have to decide how to balance her wishes with her medical needs, using their leadership abilities.

These simulations are part of the training provided by Shadow Health. They include scenarios like Advanced Pharmacology and Advanced Diagnostics for graduate students, as well as a Leadership simulation for undergraduates.

Anita Douglas Shadow Health Assessment

Anita Douglas is a 72-year-old Black woman who appears in both graduate and undergraduate DCEs. Anita appears in Advanced Pharmacology and Advanced Diagnostics DCEs for graduate students. In the Advanced Diagnostics DCE, Anita has been experiencing fatigue and weakness that has impaired her activities of daily living for a few months and has had her symptoms dismissed as ‘old age’.

As an older patient, students should be mindful of how they interact with Anita to avoid implicit ageism. Ageism in the healthcare setting can impact adequate care, prevalence of health conditions, and healthcare costs (Levy et al, 2018). Additionally, discrimination is even more prevalent among older minority individuals particularly as it relates to delayed care and poor communication (Rhee et al, 2019). In these simulations, students must remain aware of how implicit bias toward race, gender, and age may impact interpretation of a patient’s signs and symptoms throughout the diagnostic process. They must also take potential risk factors into consideration when determining their working medical diagnosis.

In the Undergraduate Leadership DCE, Anita is one of five patients that students manage care for over three consecutive days at Shadow General hospital. Students must apply several leadership concepts, including prioritization, delegation, ethics, change management, and patient advocacy. For Anita, this means evaluating her condition to ensure positive outcomes for patient care. Anita suffers a hip injury and has already been in the hospital for three days. During the morning of the third day, Anita wants to ambulate by herself and maintain her independence. She also requests education on physical therapy and how to avoid future falls. When she asks for an expedited discharge even though her goals have not been met, students will need to consider the best course of action utilizing leadership skills.

Simulations in Shadow Health

• Graduate DCEs: Advanced Pharmacology DCE | Advanced Diagnostics DCE
• Undergraduate DCE: Leadership DCE