Palliative Care - Clinical Escape Room

Put clinical knowledge to the test

The Palliative Care Clinical Escape Room transforms a clinical scenario into an engaging, hands-on learning experience.

Designed for students undertaking or completing palliative care and oncology placements, the game challenges teams to assess a patient presenting with nausea, vomiting and confusion in the context of advanced cancer.

Players must work collaboratively to gather information, interpret investigations, identify the underlying diagnosis and select appropriate management options. Each successfully completed challenge reveals part of a numerical code needed to unlock the final puzzle and escape.

Four clinical scenarios

The resource includes four scenarios, allowing educators to select the clinical challenge most appropriate for their learners:

• Bowel obstruction
• Neutropenic sepsis
• Brain metastases / raised intracranial pressure
• Hypercalcaemia

Learning through clinical problem-solving

The escape room encourages learners to apply their existing knowledge in a simulated clinical environment, developing:

• Clinical assessment and reasoning - investigating symptoms, interpreting findings and identifying possible diagnoses.
• Treatment decision-making - considering appropriate management and anti-emetic choices.
• Teamwork and communication - sharing information, discussing options and reaching decisions together.
• Problem-solving - using clinical knowledge to complete interconnected challenges.
• Reflective learning - consolidating knowledge through a facilitated debrief.

Flexible and facilitator-friendly

Designed for teams of 4–6 learners, the resource can be delivered in clinical teaching spaces or ordinary classrooms, using the supplied materials and a simple patient representation.

Multiple teams can participate simultaneously using additional kits, making it suitable for small-group teaching, simulation sessions and clinical education workshops.

Tested with learners

Evaluation involving 70 participants, with feedback from 55 respondents, found that:

• 93% agreed or strongly agreed that the session was useful.
• 93% agreed or strongly agreed that the learning style was helpful.
• 74–81% reported increased confidence or understanding across the four clinical learning areas assessed.

These findings highlight the potential of the Clinical Escape Room to create an enjoyable, engaging learning experience while supporting learners' self-reported clinical confidence.

Turn clinical knowledge into an interactive challenge — and see if your team can escape!