Title: Using Standardized Medical Students to Improve Teaching
1Using Standardized Medical Students to Improve
Teaching
- Mark H. Gelula, PhD
- Director of Faculty Development
- Research Assistant Professor
- Department of Medical Education
- University of Illinois at Chicago
2What is a Standardized Medical Student?
- Standardized medical students are actual medical
students or residents. They are trained using
scripted material to behave as actors who play
proto-typical medical students. Each prototype
represents a teaching problem
commonly encountered in teaching situations.
3Literature Background
- Using a standardized medical student as a
teacher training method for attending physicians
(clinical teachers) is relatively new. Its use
has been documented twice in the medical
education literature (Lesky and Wilkerson, 1994
Simpson, Lawrence and Krogull, 1992). However,
neither of these papers describe the development
of standardized medical students in a way that
mirrors the well established design and use of
standardized patients in medical education
(Swanson and Stillman, 1990). Nor do the
documented studies employ standardized medical
students in the context of an ongoing
institutionalized faculty development program.
4Standardized Students at UIC
- Objective
- Standardized Medical Students have been
developed within an institutionalized faculty
development program to provide highly structured
teacher training opportunities for junior
faculty. - Residents have been trained using this method and
it augurs well for their teaching improvement as
well
5How Does It Work?
- Students are scripted. There is very little room
for improvisation. - Faculty are invited to "teach" a standardized
medical student in a 10 minute, realistic
teaching encounter. - Teaching encounters are videotaped
- Standardized students give immediate feedback to
the faculty person
6Post Taping Leads to Learning
- Faculty meet in a review session where the focus
is on learning from discussion of the experience - Faculty observe segments of their own and each
others encounters - The facilitator provides a structure to the
discussion, a focus on specific learning issues
and offers suggestions for continued improvement
7Assessment
- Because faculty teach different standardized
students behaving in an identical script we are
able to observe faculty teaching improvement over
time
8Faculty, Resident, and Student Attitudes
- The medical students believe this will help to
improve teaching - Faculty who have participated find it
- enjoyable
- interesting
- stimulating to their teaching
- Residents have found the process useful to their
teaching improvement
9Implications
- Standardized medical students provide a useful
way of providing 11 and group faculty
development for the improvement of instruction - Relatively few faculty have participated (16 to
date). - Faculty should be used as proselytizers
- Resident teaching improvement may benefit as well
10Project Funding
The Standardized Medical Student Project have
been funded through a 1997 comprehensive program
grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post
Secondary Education (FIPSE), Grant P116B70318
"Improving Clinical Teaching Skills Through
Standardized Medical Students."