Complementary medicine

I had my SP assessment this morning. As I've recalled before, an SP is a standardised patient. A person who acts out a certain medical history in a reproducible manner so that all students can be assessed fairly and reproducibly. And I'm against that.

This is an actor playing a doctor. In many ways this is like me. Also the creepy patient in the background staring at you while you pose... also happens to me.

No, not the use of SP's. But the fact that it is fair. So I've ingeniously discovered a way to win the SP over and give myself the edge:

To prep you for the scenario, you are told to expect a patient of a certain stereotype, every student gets the same scenario more or less. Today I was told to expect an old looking man in his 50's. As there are numerous SPs, hardly any of them fit the stereotype. I've found the best way to begin an interview with a faux patient is to say that they look a lot younger than you were expecting. Seems to win them over from the start. They pretty much give up their history after that. Or maybe it's that they are trained to do that and I'm okay at talking to people. Whatever!

Regardless, it all went okay. Managed to speed through the history, GIT, cardio and resp exam in about 1 hour and ten minutes. I thought I was doing okay, with most people taking a bit longer. But one chap, who is a nurse by trade blitzed the whole thing in 45 minutes, without missing anything. Dang!

Room for improvement? I guess so!