Essay: My Real Patients
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.