The purpose of this article is to systematically review the literature that describes training and assessment that use an integrated patient simulator (IPS). We also tried to determine how to train learners with simulators, plan, and perform research on simulator-based education. Literature searches were conducted to identify articles from PubMed, EMBASE, and KMbase that were related to training and assessment that use an IPS, published from January 1999 to September 2008. Forty articles met the criteria and were analyzed. The results were as follows: Studies on IPS are the most common in graduate medical education (GME). The impact of IPS-based education is relatively greater in GME versus undergraduate medical education (UME) or continuing medical education (CME). IPS research in GME is characterized by addressing the effectiveness of clinical application, the training of procedures, and algorithms, rather than knowledge or simple skills. And research design is more elaborate in GME than UME or CME. IPS training in CME focuses mostly on specific clinical skills. Most training sessions in UME are offered to groups, but assessment is performed for a single student. Also, inter-rater reliability is checked unsatisfactorily in UME. IPS research in UME is characterized by limitations in design due to connections to the regular curriculum. According to findings above, we propose that: more detailed research design should be performed to overcome the limitations of UME research. For GME, increasing simulator-based training opportunities is desired, because its effectiveness and adaptability are relatively high.
