Standardized patient practices: initial report on the survey of US and Canadian medical schools.

BACKGROUND: There is currently a lack of information about the ways in which standardized patients (SPs) are used, how programs that facilitate their use are operated, the ways in which SP-based performance assessments are developed, and how assessment quality is assured. This survey research project was undertaken to describe the current practices of programs delivering SP-based instruction and/or assessment. METHOD: A structured interview of 61 individual SP programs affiliated with the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) was conducted over a 7-month period. A web-based data entry system was used by the 11 trained interviewers. RESULTS: The two most common reported uses of SPs were learner performance assessment (88% of respondents) and small-group instruction (84% of respondents). Fifty-four percent of programs hired 51-100 SPs annually and paid an average of $15 and $16 per hour for training time and portraying a case, respectively. The average reported number of permanent program employees, excluding SPs and temporary staff, was 4.8 (sd = 3.6). The most frequently reported salary range was $30,001-$45,000. CONCLUSION: We intend for these preliminary results to inform the medical education community about the functions of SPs and the structures of programs that implement these complex educational endeavors.

The Use of Station Time Allotments by Fourth Year Medical Students in a Standardized Patient-Based Clinical Skills Examination.

INTRODUCTION: We performed this study to assess medical student use of station time allotments in a standardized patient-based clinical skills assessment. METHODS: Videotapes of student-SP encounters were reviewed. Total encounter time, and time spend in the physical examination, were recorded in seconds. The mean time use for each station was calculated. Cases were categorized by patient age, case content and acuity. Times were compared across cases. RESULTS: On average, students spent most time in encounters requiring complex interviewing strategies or physical examination maneuvers. Students also spent more time on cases that involved content familiar to them from multiple clerkship disciplines. DISCUSSION: Many factors are believed to influence the use of station time allotments in SP-based clinical skills assessment. Our findings have provided information helpful for case refinement, and may assist others when planning multi-station examinations.