Module 11: Clinical Evaluation

Standardized Patient Examination (SP)

Standardized patients are people trained to simulate a medical condition or actual patients trained to present their condition in a standardized manner. An exam may consist of a single SP or several SPs presenting multiple conditions. SPs can be used to assess history and physical exam skills, ability to generate differential diagnosis or treatment plans, communication skills, and laboratory utilization. A checklist or rating form is filled out by a physician observer or by the SP, using previously set criteria.

SP exams can give reliable scores; however, training of the raters is critical. Training the SPs and developing and administering the exam are time and resource intensive. It is estimated to take 8-10 hours to train a new SP to simulate a new problem.