Media Article: The Art and Science of Patient Safety
By: Maya Bell
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

Wearing an oxygen mask and neck brace, the teenager is conscious but confused when he arrives in the ER with a paramedic who advises he fell down stairs after swallowing an unknown quantity of antidepressants, opioids, and alcohol in an attempted suicide. “Help me, please help me,” moans the 17-year-old named Oscar. “Where am I? Why is everything so blurry? Am I wearing 3D glasses?”

Media Article: Opioid Education Program Boosts PA Students' Confidence in Providing Patient Care
By: Colby Strong, Editor
Submitted by: Janice Radway, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

This article is part of The Clinical Advisor's coverage from the 2018 American Academy of Physician Assistants' annual meeting in New Orleans. The researchers sought to improve the Physician Assistant (PA) didactic curriculum by integrating a lecture series on opioid use disorder followed by standardized patient examinations (SPE) and then assess the effectiveness of this program on students' perceived confidence in their ability to evaluate this patient group.

Media Article: Brush With Death Leads Doctor To Focus On Patient Perspective
By: Michelle Andrews
Submitted by: Dan Brown, Emory School of Medicine

This article tells the story of Dr. Rana Awdish of the Henry Ford Health System, whose near-fatal rupture in her liver gave her perspective as a patient that inspired a passion for improving empathy in patient communication. She recalls the words of the medical team and the negative emotional impact they had on her and her will to survive. She has since developed CLEAR Conversations, a program which uses SPs to improve conversations between Henry Ford providers and patients. Read the full article at NPR here.

Media Article: VTC School of Medicine Student Motivated to Serve Patients and Overcome Health Disparities
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

This article is a wonderful display of hope in the future of medicine. Learn about Jay Patel and his path to medicine which the article points out “begins with the heart.” Patel gives praise for what we do as SP Educators. As the author writes, “His favorite part of the school so far has been the clinical skills curriculum. We are exposed to patients from day one and have interactions with standardized patients [or trained patient actors] every week.  It prepares us to interact with patients and be a physician who actually listens to your patients, knows how to talk to them and interview them, and tie that into the clinical reasoning aspect of medicine." Read the full article at WVNSTC.com here.

Media Article: Simulation Room Preps Ohio State Students for Active Shooter Response
By: Nick Bechtel
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

Medical students at the Ohio State University are using a simulation room at the Wexner Medical Center to practice their response to a mass shooting situation. A part of the hospital has been transformed to look like a movie theater, where students and staff simulated mass casualty event on Tuesday. Fake gunshots rang out, and students posing as wounded victims covered in fake blood screamed out for help. "It was definitely startling, the extent of some of the injuries, and having the blood shoot out onto us," said Jess Pinto, a fourth-year medical student. "At one point a patient is talking to us and the next minute they're not, startling and scary."  See the full coverage at NBC4 here, or view the video coverage here.

Media Article: Oregon medical students face tough test - Talking about dying
By: Jonel Aleccia
Submitted by: Kerensa Peterson, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

The distraught wife paced the exam room, anxious for someone to come and tell her about her husband. She’d brought him to the emergency department that afternoon when he complained about chest discomfort. Sophia Hayes, 27, a fourth-year medical student at the Oregon Health & Science University, entered with a quiet knock, took a seat and asked the wife to sit, too. Softly and slowly, Hayes explained the unthinkable: The woman’s husband had had a heart attack. His heart stopped. The intensive care team spent 45 minutes trying to save him. Then Hayes delivered the news dreaded by doctors and family members alike. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “But he died.” Read the full article at Salon.com here.

Media Article: Searching for the Roots of Empathy in Rituals of Care
By: Emily Wilson
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, ASPE President

Kerry Tribe is interested in memory, language and awkward connections. These come together in her latest project, Standardized Patient. These SPs (as Tribe calls them) are professional actors used to train future doctors how to listen, be empathetic, and establish a rapport with patients. After observing classes at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, Tribe came up with four case scenarios, and she’s made a two-channel video installation, on display in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s New Work series through February 25 — her first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum. Read the full article at Hyperallergic.com here.

Media Article: Searching for the Roots of Empathy in Rituals of Care
By: Emily Wilson
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, ASPE President

Kerry Tribe is interested in memory, language and awkward connections. These come together in her latest project, Standardized Patient. These SPs (as Tribe calls them) are professional actors used to train future doctors how to listen, be empathetic, and establish a rapport with patients. After observing classes at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, Tribe came up with four case scenarios, and she’s made a two-channel video installation, on display in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s New Work series through February 25 — her first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum. Read the full article at Hyperallergic.com here.

Media Article: Back to Pharmacy School, Part 1 - What's Being Taught Now?
By: Karen Berger, PharmD
Submitted by: Lee Ann Miller, SP Educator, WV STEPS

The WVU School of Pharmacy is an exemplary entity at the David and JoAnn Shaw Center for Simulation Training and Education for Patient Safety (STEPS), the simulation center for all of WVU Health Sciences.  As this practicing pharmacist will attest, students today reap wide benefits from the learning experiences afforded to them by the forward thinking faculty of our institution. Simulation and interprofessional activity are paramount. We are proud to support student centered learning and the “flipped” classroom, by providing educational experiences with dozens of Standardized Patients, GTAs, and MUTAs. WV STEPS was recently mentioned in an article at Pharmacy Times, which can be read here.

Media Article: Comparing Physical Exam Education at U.S. Medical Schools
By: Anna Williams
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, ASPE President

The resources used to teach the physical exam to pre-clerkship medical students vary widely across U.S. medical schools, according to a new study published in the journal Academic Medicine. Toshiko Uchida, MD, director of Clinical Skills Education, was the first author of the study. “The physical exam is a crucial skill for physicians, and several studies suggest that poor physical exam skills can lead to lower-quality care and medical errors,” said Uchida, also an associate professor of Medical Education and of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. “But every medical school curriculum is unique, and very little is actually known about how medical schools teach the physical exam.” Read the media article in the Northwestern Medicine News Center here, or read the research article in the Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges here.

Media Article: Med School's “SP Dave” Wins Growing Bolder Award for Improving Community Health
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

A standardized patient who has helped educate medical students since University of Central Florida’s medical school opened in 2009 was honored December 6 for helping build a healthier community. David Shaheen, a retired NASA bookkeeper known at the medical school as “SP Dave,” received a “Boldy” award from Growing Bolder, an Orlando-based media group dedicated to inspiring people to live extraordinary lives as they age. Growing Bolder promotes bold, healthy aging in multiple media platforms, including television, radio, magazine and social media. Read the full article in UCF Todayhere.

Media Article: Standardized Patients Teach Skills and Empathy
By: Dinah Wisenberg Brin
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, ASPE President-elect

From his first month as a student at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock, Ark., Grant Cagle learned how to drape a patient, take a medical history, perform physical exams, deliver bad news, and more. And he was able to learn and practice these clinical skills—and make mistakes—without affecting actual patients. Read the full article in at AAMC Newshere.

Media Article: MU Health Care Holds Outdoor Emergency Training
By: Maia McDonald
Submitted by: Dena Higbee, Missouri University Shelden Clinical Simulation Center

Rock Bride Memorial State Park looked anything but normal with hikers oozing fake blood, groaning out like they were in pain while strewn out across the rock-filled stream.  Others peeked around trees, anxious and worried as Boone County firefighters worked frantically to treat the "injured." Read the full article on the KOMU website here.

Media Article: Rehearsing Transgender Healthcare
By: Alex Stern
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

Bianca Leigh is playing a character named Tia Lopez.“Tia Lopez is a 36-year-old woman of trans experience. She works as a bartender. She’s in a two-year relationship with her boyfriend, and she has come for her annual physical,” Leigh explains.Leigh is a standardized patient — an actor, pretending to be sick or coming in for a fake checkup, so medical students can practice being doctors in a low-risk environment. She is one of several “patients” that students at New York University School of Medicine will practice with today. Read the full article on Newsworks.org here.

Media Article: Pretend Patients Getting Paid to Play Sick
By: Austin O’Connor
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

Pretending to be sick isn't just for high school students who haven't studied for exams or the office worker trying to sneak in a sunny afternoon at the ballpark. In fact, faking illness can be a nice little side gig — if you have the desire and skills to act out an ailment and be examined by medical students in training.Read the full article on the AARP website here.

Podcast: How Standardized Patients Work
By: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, Stuff You Should Know
Submitted by: Anna Lank, C3NY

Even the most brilliant medical minds need a good bedside manner, and thanks to standardized patients, they can improve their skills. What are they? Part-time workers who pretend to be real patients so doctors can practice on live humans. If you're remembering Kramer on Seinfeld right about now, you're not alone.Listen to the podcast here.

Media Article: Northwestern Medicine Caregivers Practice Having Difficult Conversations
By: Will Doss
Submitted by: Kerensa Peterson, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Frontline caregivers practiced breaking bad news to simulated patients at an innovative new multi-site seminar broadcast from Feinberg’s Simulation Lab earlier this month. The seminar uses active learning techniques to provide far more skill development than a simple lecture, according to course organizers. Read the full article at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine News Center here.

Media Article: Disaster exercise helps Texas A&M medical students develop skills for mass casualty scenarios
By: Kelan Lyons
Submitted by: Todd Lash

Lexie Valadez wasn't pregnant, but she gave birth to a beautiful baby doll on Thursday morning."I was a laboring mother today. I had a baby," said the Texas A&M University College of Nursing senior. Valadez was playing a role in A&M's ninth annual Disaster Day, a mass casualty disaster training exercise that aims to teach students vital skills needed to respond to emergency situations. Read the full article in The Eagle here.

Immersive Training Experience Helps Teach Safe Opioid Prescribing
By: David C. Holzman
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer

Simulation and immersive learning techniques appear to be particularly effective and powerful for teaching safe opioid prescribing, according to a new study. The research involved pain medicine fellows and anesthesiology residents at Stanford University—all trainees at the graduate level—working in a simulated outpatient pain clinic. There, a standardized patient actor played the role of a patient who meets the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) for an opioid use disorder, and is asking for an opioid refill to prevent withdrawal, having presented to the clinician with only one tablet of hydromorphone left. Read the full Pain Medicine News article 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.