Standardized Patients

Standardized Patients are comparable to real patients but can be better suited for teaching and student assessments. Symptom presentations can remain stable and standardized, and the levels of difficulty can be tailored to the level of learner. Standardized Patients carry lower risk as we avoid causing inconvenience or discomfort to real patients with real concerns. Finally, multiple Standardized Patients portray the same case in a standardized way, allowing a large volume of learners to have, essentially, the same experience.

Teaching: Standardized Patients help students master the communication skills necessary for successful patient assessment, interaction and treatment. They perform their role in front of small groups of students and a clinician. The SMP typically runs these sessions during the week.

Evaluation: Standardized Patients support the Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCE) for students. They perform their role in a room with one student at a time and a physician assessing the student’s performance. The SMP typically administers exams on weekends.

Standardization ensures that all portrayals of patient cases unfold as identically as possible. Standardized Patients give responses and portray symptoms consistently amongst their peers as well as from one student encounter to the next. Standardized Patients receive training to respond to unexpected questions in a standardized way. This allows us to provide a fair and standardized learning or assessment experience.

The types of cases vary significantly based on the portrayal of symptoms and background history.

In cases involving a history taking, Standardized Patients will memorize all the relevant background medical history of the patient case. Examples of these include a headache, abdominal pain, or chest pain. In some instances, Standardized Patients will portray physical symptoms during the history taking (i.e. coughing).

Other patient cases will test the student’s skills conducting a physical examination.

Standardized Patient work depends on availability and case requirements. Every simulation includes at least one paid training period approximately two weeks before the teaching or examination session.

Most sessions take place at the Clinical Academic Campus at Kelowna General Hospital. A small number of sessions take place on the UBC Okanagan campus. Parking will be reimbursed.

A Standardized Patient must be committed and comfortable with role playing. They must maintain a non-judgmental approach and exercise compassion for their patient portrayal in addition to the students and physicians interviewing them. They should also have a good memory, strong attention to detail, respond well to direction, and communicate effectively in English.

Despite our best training efforts, Standardized Patients may need to respond to unexpected questions using skills learned in our training sessions. Standardized Patients may need to wear a patient gown for non-invasive physical exams performed by students and clinicians.

The SMP welcomes generally healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 80 to apply. Unfortunately, pre-med or medical students cannot participate.

Standardized Patients train to portray a role, while Volunteer Patients participate as themselves.

A background or interest in acting is an asset but not required. Some patient cases require the use of actors, but the majority are simple and straightforward enough for non-actors to portray.

The work has nothing to do with finding dramatic moments or playing to an audience. It has everything to do with disciplining yourself within the needs of the case and the exam. It may be appropriate for you to appear anxious, irritable, or confused during an interview if that is part of the training scenario. It is important to portray the case exactly the same way for every student who interviews you.

Standardized Patients earn $24-32 per hour for training and simulations. There is a four-hour minimum for each simulation and a two-hour minimum for training.

Yes. The sessions either run during the week or on the weekends, with training sessions scheduled based on your availability.  You have the option to decline a request that does not fit your schedule.