Research Article: A simulated “Night-onCall” to assess and address the readiness-for-internship of transitioning medical students
Lead Author: Adina Kalet
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

“Medical students transitioning from undergraduate medical education (UME) to graduate medical education, experience uncertainty and distress about their readiness-for-internship. This lack of readiness may be partially responsible for the “July effect”—a reported increase of 10% in fatal medical errors in teaching hospitals in North America when these new graduates enter the workforce each July.”This article lays out the details of a simulated “Night-on-Call” (NOC) for incoming interns and residents providing them with “an authentic educational experience” to help ease any anxiety about their new appointments.Read the full article in Advances in Simulation here.

Research Article: Assessing the Believability of Standardized Patients Trained to Portray Communication Disorders
Lead Author: Carolyn Baylor
Submitted by: Kerensa Peterson, Northwestern UniversityFeinberg School of Medicine

The use of Standardized Patients in various healthcare fields is growing. The authors of this study set out to show that SPs are believable and, therefore, useful in teaching speech-language pathologists. While there is much research that has focused on standardized patient use in other areas of healthcare education, speech pathology has not yet made many contributions to the body of research on simulated experiences. This study offers a look into the authenticity of SP portrayals of communication disorders.Read the full article in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology here.

Editorial: Standardized Patients: It’s All in the Works
By: Nancy McNaughton & Mindi Anderson
Submitted by: Betty Grandis

A special edition of Clinical Simulation in Nursing dealing almost exclusively with standardized patients was published in July of this year, with an editorial and introduction by Nancy McNaughton, MEd, PhD, and Mindi Anderson, PhD, ARNP, CPNP-PC, CNE, CHSE-A, ANEF. Read the editorial and introduction here, or link to open access articles from the journal here (links may be slow).

Research Article: Simulation Training to Improve 9-1-1 Dispatcher Identification of Cardiac Arrest: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Lead author: Hendrika Meischke
Submitted by: Jennie Struijk, University of Washington

This study used standardized patients to improve 911 dispatcher response reactions to emergency calls. SPs from the program at the University of Washington participated in the study by dialing in during training sessions and reporting a variety of complaints to emergency medical dispatcher trainees. The article showcases some scholarly work in an area of simulation that does not always receive a lot of attention. Read the full article in Resuscitation here.

Research Article: Assessing the Performance and Satisfaction of Medical Residents Utilizing Standardized Patient Versus Mannequin-simulated Training
Lead Author: Ali A. Alsaad
Submitted by: Janice Radway, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

From the article: “At our institution, the traditional IM curriculum in clinical reasoning and critical thinking skills focused on the learner interacting with a simulation mannequin. Feedback from this experience was mixed, with the learners often pointing out that the interaction with the mannequin was unrealistic. We hypothesized that using an SP instead of a mannequin would not only give a more realistic experience but would also improve medical knowledge acquisition. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare residents’ performance in management of four scenarios depicting patient clinical deterioration utilizing either a high-fidelity simulation mannequin or SP.” Read the results of this study in Advances in Medical Education and Practice here.

Media Article: How Anesthesia Residents Fare When Breaking Bad News to a Patient – 4 study insights
Commentary by: Eric Oliver
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, University of Pittsburgh

A study published in BMC Anesthesiology examined how anesthesiology residents break bad news in relation to critical incidents.YandaYazbeckKaram, MD, of the Lebanon-based Lebanese American University School of Medicine, and colleagues studied how anesthesiology residents broke bad news to patients through a simulator and through role-play situations.

Research Article: Meeting the Primary Care Needs of Transgender Patients Through Simulation
Lead author: Richard Greene
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Char

As reported in a Medical Xpress press release entitled “Transgender actors effective in teaching new doctors to provide respectful care,” by acting out scenarios commonly seen in the clinic, real-life transgender actors can help residents learn to provide more sensitive care to people with a different gender identity than the one they were assigned at birth. This is the main finding of a study published online June 15 in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education.

Media Article: Improving Surgeon-Patient Communication About High-Risk Surgery
Commentary by: Betty Ferrell
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, University of Pittsburgh

Best Case/Worst Case Communication - This novel project targets an important yet difficult clinical scenario: counseling patients facing high-risk surgery. To improve surgeon-patient communication in these situations, Kruser and colleagues developed a training program based on a "best case/worst case" (BC/WC) communication tool.

Research Article: Applying lessons from social psychology to transform the culture of error disclosure
Lead author: Jason Han
Submitted by: Kris Slawinski, Publications Committee

This article is a must-read for simulationists planning events revolving around patient safety issues. The authors focus on the psychological aspects of the healthcare provider at the center of a medical error, instead of the mechanics of the error. Realistic simulations should provoke learners to experience the “counterproductive thought patterns” that plague those who have been through such an actual event with a negative outcome, so that they can learn the coping mechanism before such a thing actually happens to them.

Research Article: Patient safety attitudes of pharmacy students in an Ethiopian university: a cross-sectional study
Lead author: Tamrat Befekadu
Submitted by: Kris Slawinski, Publications Committee

Results of a survey completed by pharmacy students studying in Ethiopia revealed interesting attitudes about patient safety issues. The survey contained 21 items rated using a four-point Likert scale. One important conclusion arrived at by the authors is that a “standardized patient safety course should be considered …in the curriculum.” Read the full article in the Drug, Healthcare and Patient Safety journal here.

Research Article: Effects of Communication Skills Training (CST) Based on SPIKES for Insurance-Covered Pharmacy Pharmacists to Interact with Simulated Cancer Patients
Lead Author: Manako Hanya
Submitted By: Kerensa Peterson, Publications Committee

What happens to patients whose typical course of treatment moves outside a doctor’s office or hospital and into the local pharmacy? Cancer patients have had treatment shifted from surgical hospital to outpatient services. A group of researchers in Japan recognized these patients were seeing their pharmacist more than their doctors after their cancer diagnosis because of the advancements in pharmaceutical treatment. It is understandable that pharmacists then bore a greater burden of educating patients about their treatment while also dealing with the psychological aspects of a cancer diagnosis.

Research Article: SBIRT Training in Social Work Education: Evaluating Change Using Standardized Patient Simulation
Lead Author: Paul Sacco
Submitted By:Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

A group at the University of Maryland published a study in the Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions looking at the effectiveness of using standardized patients to teach alcohol misuse intervention skills, such as screening, brief intervention, and referral for treatment, to Masters in Social Work learners. Few studies have been published regarding the use of SPs in social work education, and this study reported evidence of increased use of the alcohol misuse intervention skills in practice after training. Read the full article here.