10/02/2009 Standardized Patient Revisited
We have a couple of students rotating in our department at work at the moment. Today they had to perform two genetic counseling sessions with a standardized patient in their genetic counseling program. Which, for those of you away from the realm of patient care training, means that you must perform a genetic counseling session with an actor pretending to be a patient while being videotaped- knowing full well the whole time that several bigwigs are watching you, and will be able to watch you again, for all of eternity. Or until the tape breaks. Or you burn it.
It brought me back to when we had to do our standardized patient assignment our second year of grad school. Our program director welcomed us back to the start of our second year, filling us in on our rotation schedules, our classes, our thesis deadlines- nothing too big. It was our second year- we knew the ropes.
Then there was a pause. An unnatural clearing of the throat. "Oh, um. . .one more thing. . in three weeks time, we're going to have you try something we've never done before. . a full counseling session. . with an actor. . with three of your program directors/supervisors in the room. . with a video camera. " All six of us spent the next 21 days with a constant stomach ache. Perhaps this malaise started when, in the process of explaining the assignment to us in more detail, our director referred to herself and our other supervisors as "judges. " When this was pointed out to her, she chuckled and said, "Oh, did I say JUDGES? Hahahahohohoha- Oh, I didn't mean THAT."
I am so not into the "freak the shit out of your students" game that so many in my field seem to enjoy. Yeah, yeah we need to develop the skills to work under pressure. All in good time my friends, all in good time! They frazzled us further by making us wait until 24 hours before the standardized patient exercise was clocked to begin before emailing us the details of the case. Our students today had to do one family history of breast cancer case, and one prenatal case involving an abnormal quad screen. Yeah, something routine like that would have been nice. For us, we were given the whopper topic of congenital myotonic dystrophy. "Yeah. . so, this is a serious condition. . and your baby may die. . and you probably carry a trinucleotide repeat. . that probably expanded when you passed it down to your child. . and you're not affected like the baby but next time you climb a ladder or shake someone's hand you may not be able to let go. So. . I wonder how you're feeling right now?"
I was the last to go out of our group, and I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my whole life. I am not kidding folks. I jumped up and down in our little student room in order to get out my jitters beforehand. I pretended the red light of the camera was not boring a laser beam into my brain. Each time one of my "judges" shuffled her paper a jolt of adrenaline shot down my spine. And when when I inquired about her coping and my actress replied by saying that she had no support system, I wanted to slap her. . for making it that much harder for me to know what the H-E-L-L to say in response to THAT. Hearing our students talk about everything they have to do in their program makes me feel so badly for them. Oh, the memories. I was there. And, thank God Almighty, I will never be there again.
