Advantages
The use of simulated patients has several advantages.
- Convenience: SPs are able to provide cases that are needed at the time they are needed. They are likely to be more reliable, and may tolerate more students than real patients.
- Standardization: The use of standardized clinical scenarios allows direct comparison of the students' clinical skills, locally as well as nationally and internationally.
- Compression/expansion of time: SPs can provide a longitudinal experience and enable students to follow through patients over time, even in a compressed time frame of examination. One technique employed in SP encounters is the use of information cards. When the trainee or examinee articulates the need for an examination or a laboratory test, the SP hands him/her a small card with the results of that exam/test, and the encounter can continue.
- Safety: SP encounters allow students to learn about situations they may not be able to manage alone in a real clinical setting, or where the use of a real patient may be inappropriate. For example, counseling a cancer patient.
- Efficiency: The monitoring of students by SPs reduces the need for supervision of medical students by physician faculty during clinical encounters.
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