General Interest: Mimicking rashes - Use of moulage technique in undergraduate assessment at the aga khan university, Karachi
Lead author: Saniya Raghib Sabzwari
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

To assess the validity and feasibility of moulage technique–where a cosmetically constructed rash is used on simulated patients–two dermatologic rashes were developed using moulage simulation on standardized patients (SPs). Dermatologists created checklists for cases that focused on history taking of a skin rash. These included a description and identification of lesions, differential diagnosis, and basic management. Sixty-four students were assessed on a Herpes Zoster case and 32 students on a Herpes Simplex case. Face validity for all groups was established through input of content experts. The investigators determined that the use of moulage technique to develop dermatologic lesions on SPs may be utilized for student assessment. Read the full article in Education in Health here.

International News: State of Simulation in Healthcare Education: An Initial Survey in Beijing
Lead author: Zichen Zhao
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

The objective of this study was to assess the current state of the use of simulation-based training in Beijing and to explore the barriers to further development. This study included hospitals in Beijing accredited by the Standardized Residency Training (SRT) program. The questionnaire was designed online and distributed to the SRT management departments by e-mail or instant message. Thirty hospitals were invited to participate in this survey, and 15 responses were completed and met the inclusion criteria. The results of the survey indicated that there is a need for more development of training facilities, and for training the “trainers” and administrators. Financial funding, curricular design, and research seem to be crucial for building a long-term, sustainable, effective program. Read the full article in the Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons here.

General Interest: How 'Artful Thinking' Can Improve Your Visual Intelligence
By: Teodora Zareva
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

In this article, author Teodora Zareva discusses “a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania” which “shows how principles from the field of visual arts can successfully be applied to medical training to increase observational and descriptive abilities.” As Zareva puts it, “observational skills are critical for medical students and yet students undergo no specific training to develop them.” According to this article, the results from this research study “were impressive”. As one 1st year medical student reflected, “After just one session, I found myself listening to a radiologist discuss the same principles we used to look at art when analyzing a CT scan. Later I found our practice of creating narratives in the art class helped guide me when interacting with standardized patients.” Read on here to learn more about the “Artful Thinking” approach and how it might benefit medical education.

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.

General Interest: Medical Jargon May Cloud Doctor-patient Communication
By: Mary Gillis
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

As Standardized Patient Educators, we understand the importance of clear communication. We encourage our students to use very little jargon or at least follow up any jargon with a clear explanation as to mitigate misunderstanding and confusion. In this article, Mary Gillis discusses a recent “survey of London oral and maxillofacial surgery clinic patients” where “more than a third of participants did not know the meaning of terms like ‘benign’ or ‘lesion’ and more than half could not define ‘metastasis’ or ‘lymph node’.” According to UK researchers, Gillis states, “when patients misunderstand commonly used medical terms, communication and decision-making may suffer.” Read the full article on Reuters Health News 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.

International News: China’s First International SP forum held in Hangzhou
Submitted by: Robert MacAulay, Director, Standardized Patient Program UCSD School of Medicine

In December 2017 China held its first international simulated patient forum in the city of Hangzhou hosted by the China SP Practice Teaching Guidance Committee (CSPC) and sponsored by Zhejiang University. ASPE was graciously invited to attend the forum as a guest of the CSPC and introduced its Standards of Best Practice to a receptive group of attendees representing eight countries. Twenty speakers presented over the two day forum including ASPE members David Li, Robert MacAulay, Debra Nestel, Carol Pfeiffer, Claudia Schlegel and Peggy Wallace. The theme of the forum was: communication, cooperation, innovation, development and pragmatism.

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.

Research Article: Performance of International Medical Students In Psychosocial Medicine
Lead Author: Daniel Huhn
Submitted by: Janice Radway, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Research shows that international students perform poorer than their local counterparts in written and oral examinations as well as in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) in the fields of internal medicine and surgery. This 2017 study, which took place at the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg, Germany, is the first to examine how they compare in a psychosocial medicine OSCE. While there were no differences in their factual and practical knowledge, there were significant differences in conversational skills, on which the field relies heavily. Read the full article in the BMC Medical Education here.

General Interest: Data Visualization in Medical Communication
Source: 90TEN Healthcare
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

In the increasingly data-rich but time-poor environment of clinical practice, doctors face the escalating challenge of maintaining up-to-date clinical knowledge. By 2020, it is estimated that medical knowledge will be doubling every 73 days. How can medical communications help to meet this challenge and ensure that the content delivered is in a clear and understandable format, and can be assimilated quickly? One solution is data visualization. Read the full article at PMLiVE here.

Essay: My Real Patients
By: Lisa Simon, D.M.D.
Submitted by: Janice Radway, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

In this essay, medical student Lisa Simon compares her interactions with standardized patients in a clinical exam to her work as a dentist in a local jail. She describes how both encounters are watched by an outside eye (whether by video camera or security guard) and how that observation affects the interaction. She expresses her desire to receive the same authentic feedback from her “real patients” as she receives from her SPs. Read the full essay in the New England Journal of Medicine here.

General Interest: New Cell Phone App Improves Patient Experience and Drives Growth
Source: The Holvan Group
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

“The Holvan Group, a technology company focused on improving the patient experience and easing the burden placed on physicians, today announced the launch of two apps that complement the company's educational videos and expand patient engagement. The Holvan Group's proprietary technologies streamline the patient preparation process and improve the interaction between patients and healthcare providers.” Technology is continually expanding and being utilized in the world of medicine. We as SP Educators must be diligent in keeping up with these changes and incorporating them into our curriculums and teachings. Read for more information that may spark new ideas to incorporate into your program. Read the full article at Cleveland 19 News here.

Research Article: Impact of Standardized Simulated Patients on First-Year Pharmacy Students’ Knowledge Retention of Insulin Injection Technique and Counseling Skills
Lead author: Riley Bowers, PharmD
Submitted by: Robert MacAulay, Director, Standardized Patient Program UCSD School of Medicine

Objective. To compare pre- and post-intervention test scores assessing insulin injection technique and counseling skills among P1 students with (intervention) or without (control) simulated patients, and to compare counseling checklist and knowledge retention test scores between groups.

General Interest: Future Physician, Heal Thyself – Get Thee to a Gallery
By: Tom Jacobs
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, ASPE President

Envision a new generation of doctors who are more compassionate toward their patients, less prone to jumping to conclusions, and less likely to feel burned out. Then imagine such characteristics could be cultivated by tweaking the physician-training program. Sound good? Well, new research suggests such a shift is entirely possible. The key is exposing our future MDs to the arts. Read the full article at Pacific Standard here.

Media Article: Standardized Patients and the Art of Medical Maladies
By: David Owens
Submitted by: Anna Lank, Managing Director C3NY

Natalie Wilder was sitting on a couch in a greenroom, using her iPhone to apply for a part in a film. Back in June, she starred in a one-woman play, “Fresh Hell: The Life and Loves of Dorothy Parker,” at the Oldcastle Theatre Company, in Bennington, Vermont. In an hour, she was going to reprise a different solo role, one of dozens she’s performed multiple times in recent years. “Today, I have lower-back pain,” she said, as she scrolled through her calendar. Read the full article in The New Yorker here.

Member Submissions: Life Hacks for the SP Educator
By: Dan Brown, Emory School of Medicine, with contributions from ASPE membership

Occasionally members the ASPE Publications Committee will crowdsource content using the ASPE listserv. Keep an eye on listserv emails for opportunities to contribute! For more information on the listserv, click here.

General Interest: Alan Alda Shares Communication Wisdom at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Submitted by: Janice Radway, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Actor Alan Alda (of M*A*S*H fame) recently spoke to the students and faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University during “The Patient Will See You Now,” a special grand rounds lecture held at the school. During the past several years, Alda has been helping scientists learn to communicate more clearly with the public through his work with Stony Brook University School of Journalism’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. While Alda did not specifically discuss the use of SPs, we educators know what a valuable tool SPs provide for building empathy and communication skills. Alda’s staff held workshops designed to help healthcare providers hone their communication skills with interprofessional teams as well as patients, often using improvisational theater exercises. Read the full article in Rowan Today here.

Research Article: The Effects of Using High-fidelity Simulators and Standardized Patients on the Thorax, Lung, and Cardiac Examination Skills of Undergraduate Nursing Students
Lead author: Hilal Tuzer
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

Are standardized patients more effective than high-fidelity simulators in training thorax-lungs and cardiac examinations? This research article describes a study in which fifty-two 4th year nursing students took part in an exercise that compared the effects of each type of training. Read the full article in Nurse Education Today here.

Research Article: Physical Examination Skills Training: Faculty Staff vs. Patient Instructor Feedback—A Controlled Trial
Lead author: Markus Krautter
Submitted by: Todd Lash, Publications Committee Chair

Krautter et al conducted a randomized controlled study comparing feedback of PIs and faculty staff following a physical examination assessed by students and video assessors. Standardized patients acting at Patient instructors (PIs) and faculty staff physicians separately delivered feedback to 40 medical students that had performed a physical examination on the respective PI while the physicians observed the performance. The physical examination was rated by two independent video assessors to provide an objective performance standard. Feedback of PI and physicians was content analyzed by two different independent video assessors based on a provided checklist and compared to the performance standard. There was no statistical significant difference concerning overall matching of physician or PI feedback. The study demonstrates that trained PIs are able to provide feedback of equal quantitative value to that of faculty staff physicians with regard to a physical examination performed on them. However, both the students and the video raters judged the quality of the feedback given by the physicians to be significantly better than that of the PIs. Read the full article in PLoS One here.

Affiliate News: Society For Simulation in Healthcare Names Board Members
Submitted by: Valerie Fulmer, ASPE President

WASHINGTON, D.C. January 20, 2018: The Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) announced today its 2018 board of directors. Read the full release at PRWEB here.