The Standardized Patient Program is a method to consistently teach and evaluate students and to ensure the teaching objectives are achieved. The program uses people from the community to portray patients with specific problems, and to help students improve their clinical and communication skills through interviewing, problem solving, and diagnosing health problems. Currently, two afternoons during each clerk-ship, students see 4 patients. Afterward, the case is discussed in small groups of 2-4 students.
Students write-up their patient encounters, which are reviewed by faculty.
They are also given feedback from the standardized patient. The students are given the videotape of their patient encounters along with the feedback given during the session at school. This allows them to review and work on various skills at home. This program will be expanded so students will see as many as eight patients during a clerkship and eventually standardized patients will be used for evaluation purposes. The standardized-patient concept was developed in the late 1960s by Howard Barrows, M.D., a neurologist, while he was on faculty at the University of Southern California School of Medicine.