Simulated patients - real learning

by John Ramsay

When medical students, dentists and nurses graduate they go on to diagnose new patients whose medical problems they know little about. Gaining experience in this type of scenario is a key part of their training and thanks to the Simulated Patient (SP) programme, students are being given an opportunity to practise their diagnostic skills.

The SP programme, run by John Ramsay (trainer) and Gillian Dewar (coordinator), began in the late 1990s and has expanded over the last five years to teach nursing students as well as qualified medics and nurses. People from the local community are trained to act as patients and are given instructions on how to display the symptoms of a particular medical problem to enable students to practise and evaluate their diagnostic skills. The programme has a pool of around 55 men and women, ranging from 38 to 84 year olds, who all receive training before they participate in the role play.

Jean Ker, Director of the Clinical Skills Centre said, "This kind of curriculum helps students develop confidence with patients as well as competence in preparing them for real practice."

According to Jean, the programme helps students develop in a number of areas: doctor skills, techniques in taking medical history and ability to build good patient-doctor relationships. The programme also helps students in documenting what they have learned about a patient and summarising that information.

If you would like to participate in the SP programme, please contact the Patient Bank Team at 01382 632615, or email j.ramsay@dundee.ac.uk