Bridging the gap between theory and practice with the University of Dundee.
Over eight weeks in spring 2025, 300 Dundee medical students completed 2,240 AI-simulated consultations on MedAscend, practising history-taking, OSCE-style stations and review consultations on demand, with personalised feedback after every encounter.
The challenge
Communication skills sit at the heart of clinical training and OSCE assessment, yet students consistently report limited opportunities for assessed practice. OSCE preparation often becomes a last-minute memory exercise rather than genuine clinical reasoning, and medical schools face a structural challenge delivering communication training that is scalable, equitable and consistent across large cohorts.
The pilot
Between 17 March and 16 May 2025, MedAscend ran its first live pilot with the University of Dundee School of Medicine. 592 students and staff registered interest across every year group; 300 became active users, completing 2,240 simulated consultations through voice-based AI patients on their own devices, in their own time.
The pilot was designed as a structured evaluation: baseline surveys, consistent rubric scoring, post-pilot reflection, and a deliberate focus on whether on-demand simulated practice could close the gap between classroom learning and the clinical encounter.
“Amazing. Changed the game and has definitely improved my consultations. This platform's potential is amazing.”
What we built with Dundee
Students completed scenarios mapped to the MLA curriculum, embedded directly into MedAscend's proprietary feedback engine. Students worked through a briefing, a real-time spoken consultation with a voice-driven AI patient, then post-consultation tasks, with transcript-cited feedback returned within seconds.
Outcomes
Students who returned for repeated practice improved markedly. Those completing eleven or more sessions saw an average 25% lift in performance, and students who began below 60% improved by 47% on average, early evidence that scalable, personalised feedback can support learning equity, not just top performers.
- 99.2%
- of started sessions were completed
- 88.67%
- of active users returned for ≥2 sessions
- 8.9 min
- mean consultation length
- 7.47
- average consultations per student
- +47%
- lift among students who started below 60%
- 8.96 / 10
- rated the personalised feedback
- 95.8%
- want it used across the curriculum
- 300
- active medical students in the pilot
What students and tutors said
“MedAscend has completely transformed the way I study. The AI makes the consultation feel real and feedback is incredibly useful to learn from and tailored perfectly for medical students. It's helped me feel more confident in speaking to patients but also has also enhanced my knowledge and history taking skills.”
“MedAscend was invaluable in helping me prepare for my first OSCEs. I felt much better prepared as I knew what to expect from doing so much practise.”
“I have enjoyed doing the cases, the patients are amazingly life-like and deal so well with the questions asked. I can see it being a great learning tool and maybe also used for assessments.”
What's next
Building on the Dundee pilot, MedAscend is expanding the consultation library across mental health and acute presentations, rolling out OSCE Circuits (OSCE Circuit Mode) for structured assessment, and shipping the most-requested student features, replay, timer control and in-consultation access to images and results.
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