Nephrology education: it’s in the game

We are in an age of innovation within the medical education community. Training programs have developed new strategies in order to enhance and improve what is a rapidly changing field of medical education [1–3]. The Nephrology community is no exception; it has experienced a growth in the number and type of novel educational strategies. These innovations have matured into formal educational initiatives deployed through social media outlets. Many are part of the Free Online Medical Education (#FOAMed) movement, including abstracts, infographics, trivia quizzes, YouTube channels, webinars, case discussions and Twitter journal clubs [4–6]. The current work represents a novel and gamified educational effort by the @ISNEducation social media team [2]. The 2018 Nephrology World Cup promoted an array of nephrology-focused scholarly work from around the world. Scientific research from each nation participating in the 2018 FIFA World Cup was presented to the global community of nephrologists and trainees. A representative published paper in each nation’s leading domestic nephrology publication was summarized and/or converted into a single-page infographic. Using these tools, the 2018 Nephrology World Cup delved deep into local and/or regional nephrology research. By combining the passions of football (soccer) and science, the Nephrology World Cup encouraged individuals to (i) learn from and about the diversity of scientific practice with their global colleagues and (ii) promote networking within the Nephrology community. As a gamified educational initiative, the Nephrology World Cup had a crucial and important distinguishing characteristic: it was built entirely using free online tools from Google. Google docs was used to create ‘scouting reports’ for each paper (e.g. https://goo.gl/gEq8MJ), a printable worksheet to keep track of one’s selections (goo.gl/819cRh), and a succinct instruction manual to introduce this novel concept to the community (goo.gl/Cx5Cun). Google slides was used to create infographics for the competitors (e.g. https://www.dropbox.com/s/nzmf1ky109mdmnd/Spain-graphic.pdf?dl=). Google forms was used to accept registrants and their selections. The most sophisticated portion of the Nephrology World Cup was a single Google sheets file that contained 11 individual and nested mathematical functions written by members of the @ISNeducation team. The code would (i) automatically adjudicate points earned in each round, (ii) create a ‘Leaderboard’ that updated in real time (https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1mdnnEY93Y2yQA8KXMvCXL_ffnXOcTpMV) and (iii) formulate predictions for each player in subsequent rounds. With these tools, the Nephrology World Cup promoted a secondary goal of proving that an educational game could be successfully launched with few or no funds. Scholarly works from 32 nations were selected to compete in the Nephrology World Cup, the same roster as the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The member of the @ISNeducation team selected a domestically published nephrology-focused scientific paper (known as a ‘competitor’) and designed visualization for each. These visualizations along with succinct summaries formed a ‘scouting report’ for each scientific work. The 32 scouting reports summarized the methodology, findings and implications of each scholarly work and included editorial commentary from a member of the organizing team. Scouting reports also had information that allowed the participant to access the free full text of the scholarly work. Scouting reports were divided into eight groups that paralleled the FIFA World Cup structure. Participants had 2 weeks to read the reports and converse on Twitter (#NephroWorldCup) or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ISNeducation/learning_content/?filter=391583887989666) about the strengths/weaknesses of each competitor with other participants. Using the official Nephrology World Cup worksheet (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYJtpnxPMIoYX1r-WBDZxMNWi9X4ZyZN/view?usp=sharing), participants were able to keep track of their selections and ultimately select their first-, second- and third-place winners through Google forms. As a reflection of the increasing popularity of gamified learning, the first year of the Nephrology World Cup attracted 181 nephrologists from 43 nations (Figure 1). The game was more popular with participants whose home nations were not playing in the World Cup: India, El Salvador and the USA. Indeed, two-thirds of all players (120) were from nations that did not feature a scholarly work in the Nephrology World Cup, showcasing the global appeal of the Nephrology World Cup among participants. Figure 2 shows the enthusiasm that nephrologists had about the scholarly works chosen to compete in the World Cup, with <10% of players choosing their home nation as having the best scholarly work from among the 32 competitors. Overall, the data from the first ever Nephrology World Cup revealed a significant amount of interest in learning nephrology from locally published scientific works through gamification. Inaugural Nephrology World Cup participants. Pink = No ISN Membership; Green = Yes ISN Membership. Diversity of World Cup selections by home nation. Gamified learning is a recent development in medical education. These unique and fresh learning activities blend education and entertainment to convey complex medical topics for a broad range of learners from around the world. Previous gamified learning tools, such as Kaizen-IM, Nephmadness and ElderQuest, have proven not only that such instruments have a legitimate educational role, but also that they can successfully blend learning and fun [2, 3, 6]. We encourage the global Nephrology community to combine efforts and develop new and recurring gamified teaching initiatives. Given that the Nephrology World Cup was a successful partnership between the @ISNeducation team and the International Society of Nephrology, we strongly advocate partnerships between professional educators and local societies in creating these tools (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ISNeducation/permalink/2093383237396795/) [7]. Help from software, such as Bravo, Quizlet, Socrative and others, is available for newcomers who wish to enter the exciting world of gamified learning [3]. For nephrology, gamified learning represents a natural extension of our innovative roots. The Nephrology World Cup is an extension of an educational frontier that can truly make renal medicine more relevant and enjoyable to modern day learners. None declared.

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