The Clinical Skills Evaluation group (CSE) assists various University departments in developing examinations to assess the clinical skills performance of their students.  These hands-on tests surpass the usual paper and pencil tests used in courses.  This unique assessment is achieved with the use of Standardized Patients (SPs), which provide a consistent, reproducible presentation of a clinical case.  The well-trained SPs can either assess performance or teach students clinical skills.  A large cadre of patients has been assembled to provide a variety of possible patients.  They vary in ethnicity, age (from 4 years old to 80 years old), and those with and without pathology.  People interested in becoming standardized patients should contact Ms. Irma Robles via e-mail at irma.robles@utsouthwestern.edu or call 214-648-5360 for further information and/or an application.

A department may use the services of CSE without entailing a great deal of labor intensive effort to achieve some level of clinical skills assessment.  The department merely selects some patient problems appropriate to their specialty.  From this selection, the CSE group develops a patient script, patient training materials, performance evaluation criteria (which becomes the patient evaluation standards) and follow-on written test items to ensure the student's listening skills.  Once the total examination is developed and approved by the requesting department, the CSE group organizes and administers the test.  Afterward, the students' scores are analyzed to reveal their strengths and weaknesses.  As an added advantage, serious flaws in the course curriculum may also be revealed with analysis of test results.  University departments or courses wishing to explore the use of Standardized Patients to evaluate clinical skills performance should contact  Ms. Carla Mosley, Supervisor of Education Programs in the Clinical Skills office at 214-648-5383.

This format of using standardized patients as teachers and evaluators has been used throughout the world for nearly 30 years.  Varying forms of it are currently used in every U.S. medical school.  In less than a year, it will be incorporated by the National Medical Board of Examiners (NMBE) as a part of their Step2 licensure examination.  Our institution has provided this format to interested departments and course directors for over 15 years.   In the past, it has been used by the following groups:

· General Internal Medicine Residency Program
· Pediatrics Residency Program
· Family Medicine Residency and Clerkship Programs
· Obstetrics Clerkship Program
· Physician Assistants Courses
· MS1 Clinical Ethics in Medicine Course
· MS2 Clinical Medicine Course

In these varied courses and programs, the SP format has been designed as small group presentations, full class presentations, teaching clinic presentations, pre-clerkship survey of skills, post-clerkship mastery of skills, residency clinical competence assessment, and end-of year clinical skills assessment.  In keeping with providing our students with a means to judge their strengths and weaknesses in the critical area of clinical skills performance, a new examination is being developed and was recently tested to mirror the upcoming Clinical Skills licensure examination being instituted by the NBME.  The art of mastering clinical skills is the very essence of medicine and the art of healing.  The mission of the CSE group is to assist in fairly evaluating and ensuring competence in these critical skills.