Simulated patient centre helps students learn diagnoses

Samena Chaudhry, Birmingham

Students at the University of Kentucky's College of Medicine have been learning through a different sort of patient recently.

The college has developed a centre to house patient simulators and a standardised patient program. The Clinical Skills Training And Assessment Center (CSTAC) is home to a number of machines that teach students how to identify a variety of illnesses.

At CSTAC, before working with actual patients, the students have the opportunity to practise skills on a simulator or on an actor playing the part of a patient.

Students doing their first spinal taps may not feel their hands shaking quite so much after they've practised on the lumbar puncture and spinal injection simulator.

With "HARVEY", a realistic looking male torso, a student reading about heart sounds in a textbook can actually put on a stethoscope and hear various abnormal heart rhythms. The opportunity to hear such heart abnormalities would take weeks as patients with various conditions become available for student observation. Now, at the press of a button, a professor can demonstrate heart sounds and test students' knowledge of them.

The simulators run the gamut from "Mr Hurt Head," a simulator that allows students to diagnose seven different fractures within the head, to a labour and delivery simulator that uses a rubber baby.

While simulators are available at most medical schools, it's rare to have a centre dedicated to standardised patients and simulators, said Susan Quinlivan, CSTAC's administrative director. Students not only work with machines at CSTAC, but also with humans. Standardised patients are an important part of medical students' learning experience.

Through interaction with the standardised patients, students not only learn how to introduce themselves to patients but also how to tell someone that a family member is dying.

"It really does run the gamut from the most basic interview to learning to present yourself in the most professional manner," said Donna Ison-Rodriguez, a coordinator of patients.

The students are videotaped during their encounter with the patient and later allowed to review and evaluate their performances. The practice opportunities offered at CSTAC promise to be valued by patients when students are put in real-life situations.