Open guide · Physicians & patients

RheumaPlay

RheumaPlay: quizzes where you have to take a risk

The dr.rheumaview.com game line for physicians and patients: what it is, how it plays, and why it is unlike ordinary tests.

dr.rheumaview.com has many interactive modules, and RheumaPlay is its game line. Here you play for real. Before each question you stake chips on your ability to handle it, and all you can see is the topic and the difficulty. Everything else happens next, and it is easier to see once than to describe.

Animated walkthroughs · These examples play automatically; use Pause or Restart.

The bet comes first, the question second

You have 100 chips, and the screen shows the topic “The Target” with three stars. The question itself is hidden. Do you bet 10 and play safe? Put down 100? Go all-in? You have to decide before you know what will be asked, and the only thing to go on is your own sense of how well you know the subject.

Then the question appears, and you have 30 seconds. A correct answer to a three-star question pays your bet twice over, a two-star question pays 1.5 times the bet, and a one-star question pays the bet one to one. A mistake or a timeout takes the bet. If the bank runs dry, the game refills it once with a 25-chip credit, and a second bankruptcy ends the game. A game has eight questions: the first is the easiest, the last the hardest.

A final screen that tells the truth

After the eighth question the game sums up: a tier from “Busted” to “Oracle”, eight statistics, seven possible badges and a calibration. The calibration compares how much you bet on average on the questions you got right with how much you bet on the ones you missed. If your bets were higher on correct answers, you know where you are strong. If they were higher on mistakes, you feel most certain exactly where knowledge lets you down, and that is worth knowing. An ordinary test gives a physician the number of correct answers; here there is also a picture of how they managed their own confidence.

A trap in the prescription

Blitz Carousel consists of six rounds of 45 seconds, and every round plays differently. You pair a drug with its target, find the odd one out, build a cascade in the right order, answer yes or no by swiping, and set a slider to the right number. The Trap is different from the rest: one wrong element hides in a prescription, you have 20 seconds to find it, and you get up to three attempts.

A clean round, with no mistakes and no timeout, adds the remaining seconds to your score and raises the combo multiplier: ×1.5, then ×2, and on up to ×3. A single mistake resets the multiplier to one. In High Stakes Carousel the same tasks are played for stakes, and the final duel is a single three-star question where going all-in is allowed.

Five Clues: the later you guess, the less it pays

A riddle hides a drug. Clues arrive one at a time: mechanism, class, safety, trial, indication. Name it on the first clue and you get 500 points, on the second 300, then 150, 50 and 10. You type the answer in words. The game suggests options as you type, understands the names in all four languages and forgives typos. A wrong answer does not end the riddle: it opens the next clue, and the prize on offer drops.

Before the first clue you can bargain and promise to solve the riddle by clue number N. Keep your word and the points are multiplied by 1.5; solve it later and they are halved; leave the riddle unsolved and you pay a penalty.

A clinical case where you have to find what is dangerous

A clinical case is played in four hands, and each hand carries its own bet. First you choose a diagnosis from five options, then pick the key findings, then find the conclusions that are dangerous for the patient, and finally play a quick blitz. The third hand is unusual: searching for what will harm the patient is closer to real clinical risk than choosing the right option from a list. A partial success returns the bet. The case documents, such as laboratory tables, are read without a timer, and the clock runs only while you answer.

Four languages in one game, and any other on request

Every game exists in English, Russian, Spanish and Polish. The switcher works at any moment of a game: the text redraws, the timer keeps running, and the bank and progress stay as they were. Latin terms and international nonproprietary drug names stay the same in every language.

For physicians

The physician games are written for a specialist. Figures from studies come with the name of the study, and drug classes and drugs are named freely. There are many games, grouped in series: on the link between drug, target and mechanism, on safety, monitoring and interactions, on rheumatic emergencies, on crystal arthritis, on lupus nephritis, and on cases at the border of cardiology and rheumatology. These are examples, not a full list: new series and games are added on a regular basis.

For patients

Patient modules are available too. They run on the same mechanics, with a different tone: smart, with humor, and without scaring anyone with side effects. The timers are longer, and the start screen carries a line saying the game is for learning and is not personal advice. After each question the explanation ends with what to do next: repeat the test, wait for the visit, or call the office. The basic idea is simple: the risk of an uncontrolled disease is higher than the risk of a drug taken correctly and under supervision.

Catalog and access

The games shown in this article are examples, not a full catalog. There are many more modules on the site, and new ones are added on a regular basis. Access works in different ways:

• Some modules are demos for getting to know the mechanics.
• A significant share is free, but only for registered users. Registration itself is free.
• Some modules are available by membership or by invitation (discovery pass).

What other sites usually offer

Educational resources for physicians are most often built as question banks: topical questions in a single answer format, with a quiz builder and progress tracking. That is good exam preparation, but there is one result, the number of correct answers, and the player never has to decide how confident to be.

The rheumatology game-based approaches we could find work differently: a group session for residents modeled on a board game, or a checklist in the form of bingo. Such formats engage learners, but they need an audience in one room and a facilitator. Physician platforms also carry short snap quizzes, which are a quick way to refresh a fact but not a way to test clinical judgment.

Patient materials usually remain articles, videos and handouts. People read them and close them, and there is nothing to check what was remembered or what decision the person would make in a real situation.

Where RheumaPlay is stronger

• It measures confidence, not only knowledge. A question bank reports the number of correct answers. In RheumaPlay the bet before the question and the final calibration also show how closely your confidence matched the result.
• A game instead of a question with four options. Six micro-formats, including a trap in a prescription and a number with a tolerance, and a riddle with a falling price per clue make you think in different ways. Familiar tests usually manage with a single format.
• It trains clinical judgment. In a case you have to find the conclusions that would harm the patient, not just pick the right option. Question banks usually have no such task.
• You can play anywhere. A game takes minutes and opens in the browser on a phone or a computer. It needs no facilitator, no room and no app to install.
• Four languages and any other on request. Platforms and question banks usually work in one language. Here the switcher works in the middle of a game and resets nothing, and a new language is made to order.
• The same mechanics for physicians and patients. Physician and patient games are built on the same engines and speak to the player differently, and the explanations lead to the site’s materials.

The sound is synthesized on the fly and switches off with one button, you can play from a phone or a computer, and you can share the result of a game. Most of the medical information in the games is covered in detail on the site, in the corresponding sections. Data from outside sources may also be added, after careful verification.

RheumaPlay games live on dr.rheumaview.com and lead to the site’s topic sections. There are many of them, and new ones are added on a regular basis.