SynthesisFrontiers in medicine2026
Virtual patients in medical education: a bibliometric analysis based on the wos core collection and scopus databases.
Synthesis in Frontiers in medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background and objective: Virtual patients have become an integral component of medical education, offering medical students realistic, repeatable, and interactive learning environments that effectively foster the development of clinical competencies. Moreover, the rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence and large language model technologies has further accelerated the integration of virtual patients into medical education, making it a prominent area of contemporary educational innovation. To provide a comprehensive overview of the research landscape and emerging trends in this domain, we performed a bibliometric and knowledge-mapping analysis of the literature on virtual patients in medical education. Methods: Publications published between 2006 and 2025 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases, including only English articles and review articles. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to perform bibliometric and knowledge-mapping analyses of collaboration networks, co-citation patterns, and keyword evolution. Result: A total of 2,347 publications showed a consistent upward trend. The United States led contributions, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany, with extensive collaborations between North America and Europe. Conclusions: This bibliometric analysis highlights the sustained growth and evolving research landscape of virtual patients in medical education. The findings indicate that recent research has increasingly focused on the integration of generative artificial intelligence and large language models into virtual patient systems. These findings provide a quantitative evidence base for future research priorities and the continued development of virtual patient-based medical education.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.