The importance of interviewing and physical examination skills is emphasized so that students may better use and correlate their understanding of the sciences basic to medicine with the kinds of problems patients bring to a physician. The Doctoring Streamer runs through all four years of the curriculum, providing opportunities for students to acquire clinical skills via a documented system of procedures, skills and clinical experiences.
Standardized patients are an important part of the learning and assessment systems.
Through the use of these patients students are introduced to clinical problems such as acutely ill patients, emergencies, and emotional or ethically sensitive situations. Each problem challenges clinical skills and knowledge that may not always be accessible to students in a typical setting. The standardized patient is trained to respond as an actual patient would in a similar situation but understands that poor technique, inappropriate behavior, misdiagnosis or mismanagement may occur as students are learning clinical skills. During assessments, using standardized patients , students are observed by clinical faculty and given feedback about organization, technique and thoroughness of history taking and physical examination skills. Videotaping of standardized patient encounters may be done to allow the student to review his or her performance with faculty mentors.