STANDARDIZED PATIENT PROGRAM

The Standardized Patient Lab provides current and future healthcare professionals the opportunity to learn, practice, and enhance their communication and diagnostic skills in a simulated clinical setting. From medical students to residents, and from allied health students to nurses, the Standardized Patient Lab is used by a variety of learners from a wide range of medical specialties.

A vital role in the clinical training and medical education of our students, the Clinical Skills Center serves as a connector between classroom learning and real-life clinical experience, helping students build confidence as they learn to interview, diagnose, and treat patients.

The Standardized Patient Lab consists of 15 patient exam rooms, a grading room with 15 monitoring stations, as well as several classrooms for debriefing.  Each exam room is equipped with cameras and a microphone for real-time viewing from the grading room as well as recording into the data management system. 

Standardized Patients are individuals trained to act as "patients" in a variety of clinical scenarios. Through extensive training, our standardized patients are able to realistically portray the personality, emotional status, history, and physical exam findings of a patient with a specific medical complaint.  Learners are then able to interact and engage with these "patients" in a range of simulated clinical encounters.  These simulated encounters enable our students to practice and refine those skills necessary to diagnose and treat real patients.