Education Week published an article on 28 August, 2018 entitled What Do Employers Want in a New Hire?  Mostly, Good Speaking Skills.  Here are some interesting highlights from the article:

• Good oral communication skills got the #1 slot among the 15 job skills that executives and hiring managers identified as very important in new hires.
• Oral communication ranked higher than critical thinking, ethical decision making, and working in teams.
• While 80 percent of the executives said good oral communication skills are very important, only 40 percent said that recent college graduates were “well prepared” to handle duties requiring those skills.
• That 40-point gap gets even worse when executives are asked about job candidates who can write well, think critically or apply their knowledge to real-world situations.
• Real-world work experience appears to boost employers’ confidence that job candidates will have acquired the most important skills. In the survey, more than 6 in 10 executives and hiring managers said they’d be “much more likely” to hire someone who had completed an internship or apprenticeship. (reference here)

Simulated Participant (SP) simulations are an ideal solution to include in a vast array of professional training programs.  They can ensure that future job applicants have the “real-world” experience in oral communication skills for which employers are looking.  The other added bonus that SP simulations can bring is the opportunity for learners to receive specific, behavioral feedback from the point of view of the SP.  For example, learners who have engaged with an SP portraying a hiring director can benefit from honest feedback that actual hiring directors cannot give due to hiring policies or legal & ethical concerns.  “When you shook my hand and introduced yourself, your gaze was pointed down, toward my chest.  This made me feel extremely uncomfortable and caused me to feel wary during rest of our interaction together.”  This is feedback that an SP can give a learner, feedback that an actual hiring director most likely cannot.

Expanding the application of Simulated Patient (SP) methodology into non-healthcare education is an endeavor about which I am endlessly passionate.  The writing and interviewing I’ve done for this blog represents just one semester’s worth of sharing my excitement on this topic with the world via the Internet.

I felt that every blog post deserved careful planning, research, visual design, and useful links to convey the importance of this topic.  Thus, a post that should have taken me a few hours ended up taking me a few days or weeks.  From the other blogs I’ve followed throughout the years, I don’t suppose I am the only blogger to write chapters in a post when paragraphs would have sufficed.  One lesson I’ve learned from this blogging assignment for IDE 611 is about focusing on the most important information I want to convey and communicating it as succinctly as possible, with a focus on graphics, and including plenty of weblinks to supporting information and references.

After having used Wix for my class project in IDE 621, I must express my relative frustration with WordPress, the platform on which this blog is built.  I am not very happy with the layout of this blog and wish that I could have built in better navigability.

Another lesson I learned was not to get disappointed if there were almost zero comments about my blog posts from fellow classmates (even when I directly asked for feedback).  SP simulation, though applicable in numerous disciplines, is still a “niche” field.  There is plenty of work to do for SP Educators like myself to spread the word about our field and how it can benefit any number of educators.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this blogging activity.  I am hopeful that I can continue to contribute new posts after the conclusion of this course.  There is still so much to learn about SP methodology in non-healthcare settings… and even more that is still to share with the world.

 

Professional organizations provide valuable professional development and networking opportunities for members in diverse fields.  My experience with the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) has shaped my career as a SP Educator more than any other organization or course study.  Attending annual conferences, participating in and delivering workshops and webinars, volunteering for ASPE committee work and serving as an ASPE committee chair, and being elected to the Board of Directors – these activities were invaluable in connecting me with experts in the field where I could learn from their experiences as well as collaborating to volunteer our time and effort in service to the community of SP Educators.  Around 2012, ASPE’s Board of Directors sought to redefine the organization to expand their scope to outside-of-healthcare SP simulations, resulting in the new tag line: “Transforming professionals through the power of human interaction.”

The Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) is a much larger international organization that “fosters the improvement and application of simulation–based modalities such as human patient simulators, virtual reality, standardized patients and task trainers,” (reference here).  Their annual conference, the International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) brings together 3000+ simulation educators to explore the latest innovations and best practices in healthcare simulations.  SSH also offers three professional certifications: Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE), Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator – Advanced (CHSE-A), and Certified Healthcare Simulations Operations Specialist (CHSOS).  Benefits of certification include:

• Receive formal professional recognition of your specialized knowledge, skills, abilities and accomplishments in simulation education.
• Confirm your commitment to continued professional development and lifelong learning.
• Receive international recognition for your professional accomplishments
• Demonstrate your skills and specialized knowledge to employers, practitioners and the public
• Join over 1450 healthcare simulationists from 30 countries who have become a CHSE!

Another leading professional organization in the field of medical simulation is the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL).  This organization collaborated with experts across the scope of simulation in healthcare to publish the 2016 INACSL Standards of Best Practice: SimulationSM, whose goal was “to advance the science of simulation, share best practices, and provide evidence based guidelines for implementation and training… Adoption of the ‘INACSL Standards of Best Practice: Simulation’ demonstrate(s) a commitment to quality and implementation of rigorous evidence based practices in healthcare education to improve patient care by complying with practice standards,” (reference here).  A series of helpful “Simfographics” accompany the standards:

Other professional organizations that include a focus on simulation in healthcare include: the National League for Nursing (NLN), the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPiH), the International Pediatric Simulation Simulation Society (IPSS), and the Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine (SESAM), among others.

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What professional organizations exist that are aligned with the tenets of SP methodology but are not focused on simulations in a healthcare setting?

The North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA) is “THE home for trainers, teachers, and educators who use active learning methods to increase engagement, enhance retention, and improve performance,” (reference here).

The National Communication Association (NCA) describes their mission to “advance Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry,” (reference here).

The National Modeling & Simulation Coalition focuses on digital simulation, but the field could be ripe for inclusion of human simulation as another sim modality.  Some of their affiliate organizations include: The Society for Modeling & Simulation International (SCS) and the National Training and Simulation Association (NTSA).

These are just a few of the professional organizations where bridges could be built to spread the word about SP methodology.

SP Educator, Kerry Knickle, LLM (ADR), has been passionate about implementing SP methodology in non-healthcare educational settings for more than two decades.  She is the current co-chair of the Association of Standardized Patient Educators’s special interest group on Non-Medical/Expanded Use of SPs.

Based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Kerry and two of her SP Educator expert colleagues, Nancy McNaughton, MEd, PhD, and Diana Tabak, MEd(S), have founded a workshop-based consulting business called Communication Matters.  The services they offer include facilitated debriefing, constructive feedback and coaching, small and large group experiential learning, a focus on the unique needs and skills of each learner, tailored curriculum design and consultation, and e-learning curriculum design and development.  Workshops they currently offer include:

• Collegial ConflictTM: Up Close and Professional
• To Brief or Not Debrief: That’s Facilitation!
• COMMOTION: The Collision of Communication and Emotion in Professional Practice
• When Push Comes to Shove: Advancing Collaborative Communication and Collegial Relationship
• Communication: A Throughline for Facilitation and Experiential learning 
• Talk, Text Mend Send: Communication Across Social Mediums

Prior to Communication Matters, Kerry and her colleagues at the University of Toronto spearheaded SP simulations for a variety of non-medical clients in fields such as law, public safety, and business; as well as innovative SP simulations in health-related fields.  Kerry’s dispute resolution focus highlights how assumptions, judgments and communication inform and impact personal and professional relationships. Kerry holds a Master of Laws degree, with a specialization in Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) from Osgoode Hall (reference here).

 

 

 

Denise Lamarra is the Director of the Standardized Patient Program at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.  She is also co-chair of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on Non-Medical/Expanded Use of SPs for the Association of Standardized Patient Educators.  I have been fortunate to work with Denise on the SIG since its inception, collaborating on presentations,  workshops, and panel discussions.

It has been a couple years since I had the chance to catch up with this leader in the field of SP Education, and in particular, a leader in the application of SP methodology for simulations in non-healthcare educational settings.  We connected via Skype (and experienced our fair share of audio and visual problems) on 30 October, 2018.  The interview has been edited into three parts.

In Part One, Denise talks with me about her earliest non-medical SP simulations (for managers undergoing skills development training through the human resources department at Penn).  She also previews the book chapter on which she’s currently working with the SIG co-chair, Kerry Knickle.  Finally, she reflects on some of the logistical considerations that are important to keep in mind when designing SP simulations for non-healthcare learners.

 

 

In Part Two we ask, how do SP Educators develop their “Pitch,” or elevator speech, to help clients understand how SP methodology will help them engage their learners – and why is it important to differentiate between “role play” and “simulation”?  Also, Denise gives an update on her most recent projects: SP simulations for  community health workers; veterinarians; and school principals navigating racially-charged student, teacher, and parent situations.

 

Finally, in Part Three we discuss authenticity in SP case development.  Denise outlines strategies that SP programs can use to balance their obligations to medical clients (often the parent departments of SP programs) with developing new, non-healthcare clients.  How does this mutually benefit stakeholders?  Denise also reiterates that SP simulation activities must align with the goals of the curriculum and specific learning objectives.  SPs can be trained on the professional competencies on which to focus when giving learners feedback, competencies as diverse as the myriad industries who can benefit from immersive SP encounters.  Finally, there is an aspect of play (a privilege we seem to lose as adults) and fun inherent in SP simulations.  All professions can benefit from the chance to practice their skills in authentic encounters with trained human beings.

Syracuse University School of Education professor and chair of Teaching & Leadership, Benjamin H. Dotger Ph.D., has been applying SP methodology to undergraduate teaching education and graduate school leader education since 2007.  He has published four books, numerous articles, and has been awarded major grants from the National Science Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and The New York State Education Department’s Educational Leadership Program Enhancement Project (ELPEP), funded by the federal Teacher/Leader Quality Partnership Program.

Dr. Dotger’s creation of the Educational Simulation Interaction Model (SIM) has afforded experiential learning and assessment opportunities to Syracuse University (SU) students, currently, pre-service teachers and novice school leaders.  In partnership with the Clinical Skills Center at neighboring SUNY Upstate Medical University, hundreds of SU learners have engaged with dozens of simulated participants, most of whom are hired actors who have been meticulously trained to portray a realistic parent, teacher, school administrator, or other character.  These simulations cannot be “scripted,” per se, though they follow a standardized training outline and include “trigger” responses that provide standardized answers for SPs to employ at a particular time during the simulation or upon being asked a particular question by the student.

“The Simulated Interaction Model (SIM) designs and clinically tests simulations for

pre-service teachers and novice school leaders. The simulations identify strengths and misconceptions in school professionals’ understanding of content and pedagogy, increase instructional capacity, and advance student achievement. Over twenty SIMs focus on common problems of practice, challenges, dilemmas, and issues that school professionals encounter in K-12 education.” (from edusims.syr.edu)

Other universities have taken notice of Dr. Dotger’s work and have begun to employ the SIM and Standardized Parent Conferencing Model (SPCM).  There have also been other novel uses of the SIM, including grant funding opportunities, for example, the National Science Foundation, for subject-specific simulations.  These math-science simulations might feature a simulated student who does not know how to read a graph; the pre-service teacher’s job is to assess the simulated student’s current knowledge, identify the gap, and provide detailed instruction to help close that gap.  Specific, behavioral feedback from the simulated student’s perspective always follows the simulation, as well as large group debrief moderated by a faculty member.

Could SP simulation be implemented in the curricula across an entire university?  York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada aspires to exactly this.  The Simulated Person Methodology Lab offers training workshops and guidance about incorporating live person simulation into instruction at York University for educators from all departments.  “Educators will learn to develop simulation based learning and to facilitate meaningful student engagement.  They will learn how they can collaborate with trained simulators to bring simulation into their curriculum,” (York’s SPM home page).

The Simulated Person Methodology (SPM) program draws from over a decade of experience, research, and teaching to “enhance professional development and provide an opportunity [to learners] to practice skills in a safe space where one can make mistakes and try again with feedback and coaching,” (from About Us).

What are some of the skills that students may develop through simulation?

• Demonstrate application of critical thinking and reasoning
• Develop interviewing skills using open-ended questions
• Maintain objectivity
• Understand the effect of eye contact, silence, paraphrasing, acknowledgement and bias on communication
• Respond to non-verbal cues
• Convey understanding
• Use body language appropriately
• Build trust
• Establish rapport
• Provide and receive feedback
• Develop reflective skills
• Develop emotional intelligence (from About Us)

What are some of the disciplines where experiential learning in the form of SPM can be applied?  Law, business, education, social work, library sciences, and any profession where interpersonal and communication skills are a necessary component, including mock trials, interviewing, therapeutic or clinical skills, business transactions, interacting with challenging classroom situations, conflict resolution, inter-professional interactions, and, really, any human interaction that requires practice and benefits from reflection and feedback.

A SPM Learning Module and example case studies provide an introduction to SPM for interested faculty and participants.  Registration for SPM workshops is available on the program’s website.  These workshops seek to provide hands-on training to educators about how to use SPM to implement simulation into their classrooms.

A highlight of the SPM Lab’s website is a 6-minute introductory video that provides an excellent overview of the SPM program and demonstrates simulation in action.  Facilitator debriefing techniques are featured as a vital component of the simulation.

Though York University’s Simulated Person Methodology Lab is on the cutting edge of infusing experiential learning into a wide variety of curricula university-wide, this model is one that could easily be translated into similar programs at other institutions of higher education across the globe.  Obtaining adequate funding, identifying appropriate learning spaces, recruiting experienced SP Educators to lead these programs (such as Dr. Eva Peisachovich, SPM Lab Director at York University), and provoking interest in stakeholders through marketing may be some of the barriers to implementing a university-wide SPM program like York’s.

 

History

1963.  University of Southern California.  Neurologist Howard S. Barrows seeks an objective way to assess the performance of medical students at the end of their neurology clerkship.  Dr. Barrows hires an artist’s model, Rose McWilliams, to portray a fictionalized version of a real patient with multiple sclerosis and paraplegia.  He coaches her to mimic the real symptoms and affect (emotions) and trains her to complete an assessment checklist he has created.  Thus, the “programmed patient,” as he initially calls the patient actor, is born.  (Levine, Adam I. et al. The Comprehensive Textbook of Healthcare Simulation. Springer, 2014.)

Dr. Barrows’ seminal work was widely criticized by his fellow faculty members at USC as “Too Hollywood” and “Detrimental to medical education by maligning its dignity with actors,” but he soon found company in Dr. Stephen Abrahamson, and, later, at McMaster University, with nurse Robyn Tamblyn in 1971. (Levine 2014)

Meanwhile, at the University of Arizona, Dr. Paula Stillman trained and employed “patient instructors” or “standardized patients” to reliably evaluate the clinical competence of her pediatrics students.  Dr. Stillman’s method was adopted by many residency programs in the 1980’s, and further expanded in 1993 when the Medical Council of Canada included standardized patients (SPs) as part of their licensure examination.

The late 1990’s saw an explosion of medical education and assessment techniques featuring SPs.  The ECFMG and USMLE both adopted a clinical skills assessment as a mandatory step for obtaining licensure in the US.  To best prepare medical students for this required – and expensive – examination, most North American medical schools opened their own standardized patient programs.  These SP programs were poised to serve other learners in healthcare education such as nurse practitioner (NP) students, physician assistant (PA) students, doctor of physical therapy/physiotherapy (DPT or PT) students, pharmacy (Pharm.D) students, and others.  The Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) has incorporated SP methodology in their certification and accreditation programs.

In 2015, Debra Nestel and Margaret Bearman published Simulated Patient Methodology: Theory, Evidence, and Practice.  The first chapter, Introduction to Simulated Patient Methodology, begins:

‘Simulation is a technique to replace or amplify real experiences with guided experiences, often immersive in nature, that evoke or replicate aspects of the real world in a fully interactive fashion.’  This definition by Professor David Gaba, a pioneer of contemporary healthcare simulation, aptly describes simulated patient-based scenarios.  A well-prepared simulated patient (SP) has the ability to draw learners into a scenario quickly, achieving deep engagement.  Their mere presence usually prompts interactivity.

(Simulated Patient Methodology: Theory, Evidence, and Practice, First Edition.  Edited by Debra Nestel and Margaret Bearman. (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Drs. Nestel and Bearman include, in chapter one, a graphic to explain the phases of SP-based simulation (Figure 1).  Of note: the Evaluation phase can mean both learner assessment and evaluation of the entire simulation activity process.  Dr. Nestel’s work through the Simulated Patient Network has helped SP Educators (SPEs) network with other SPEs from around the world.

 

According to the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE), SP Educators may now be found in twenty-one countries outside of Canada and the US.  ASPE members may also join a special interest group (SIG) on “Non-Medical/Expanded Use of SPs.”  Denise LaMarra of the University of Pennsylvania and Kerry Knickle of the Michener Institute of Education at UHN in Toronto co-chair the SIG and present on the many novel applications of SP methodology outside of the health professions.  Law, social work, business, public safety, spiritual/pastoral care, teacher/school leader education, and high school job interview preparation activities are just some of the fields that have employed SPs to help train and assess learners’ communication skills, empathy, technical communications, and cultural humility, among other interpersonal – and intrapersonal – skills.

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Definitions

Through collaboration with a multitude of healthcare simulation and SP-focused organizations around the world, SSH recently published a Healthcare Simulation Dictionary to help educators in the field share a common, standardized nomenclature.  Some commonly used terms from the Healthcare Simulation Dictionary are defined, below:

Actor: In healthcare simulation, professional and/or amateur people trained to reproduce the components of real clinical experience, especially involving communication between health professionals and patients or colleagues.

Brief/Briefing: An activity immediately preceding the start of a simulation activity where the participants receive essential information about the simulation scenario such as background information, vital signs, instructions, or guidelines. For example: before beginning a session, faculty conduct a briefing about the scenario to review the information being provided to the participants.  Also: Orientation.

Confederate: An individual other than the patient who is scripted in a simulation to provide realism, additional challenges or additional information for the learner e.g., paramedic, receptionist, family member, laboratory technician.

Cueing: Information provided to help the learner reach the learning objectives (conceptual cues), or to help the learner interpret or clarify the simulated reality (reality cues); Conceptual cues help the learner reach instructional objectives through programmable equipment, the environment, or through responses from the simulated patient or role player; Reality cues to help the learner interpret or clarify simulated reality through information delivered during the simulation.

Debrief/Debriefing: To conduct a session after a simulation event where educators/instructors/facilitators and learners re-examine the simulation experience for the purpose of moving toward assimilation and accommodation of learning to future situations; debriefing should foster the development of clinical judgment and critical thinking skills.

Feedback: An activity where information is relayed back to a learner; feedback should be constructive, address specific aspects of the learner’s performance, and be focused on the learning objectives.

Fidelity: The degree to which the simulation replicates the real event and/or workplace; this includes physical, psychological, and environmental elements.

Healthcare Simulation: A technique that creates a situation or environment to allow persons to experience a representation of a real healthcare event for the purpose of practice, learning, evaluation, testing, or to gain understanding of systems or human actions.

Hybrid Simulation: In healthcare simulation, hybrid simulation is most commonly applied to the situation where a part task trainer (e.g., a urinary catheter model) is realistically affixed to a standardized/simulated patient, allowing for the teaching and assessment of technical and communication skills in an integrated fashion.

Incognito Standardized Patient: A person who plays a role as a patient in real healthcare situations, while the healthcare workers in those situations are unaware of the fact that the person is not a real patient.

In Situ/In Situ Simulation: Taking place in the actual patient care setting/environment in an effort to achieve a high level of fidelity and realism; this training is particularly suitable for difficult work environments, due to space constraints or noise. For example, an ambulance, a small aircraft, a dentist’s chair, a catheterization lab. This training is valuable to assess, troubleshoot, or develop new system processes.

Interprofessional Education: An educational environment where students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.

Manikin-based Simulation: The use of manikins to represent a patient using heart and lung sounds, palpable pulses, voice interaction, movement (e.g., seizures, eye blinking), bleeding, and other human capabilities that may be controlled by a simulationist using computers and software.

Modality: A term used to refer to the type(s) of simulation being used as part of the simulation activity, for example, task trainers, manikin-based, standardized/simulated patients, computer-based, virtual reality, and hybrid.

Moulage: The application of makeup and molds to a human or simulator’s limbs, chest, head, etc. to provide elements of realism (such as blood, vomitus, open fractures, etc.) to the training simulation.

Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE): A station or series of stations designed to assess performance competency in individual clinical or other professional skills. Learners are evaluated via direct observation, checklists, learner presentation, or written follow-up exercises. The examinations may be formative and offer feedback or summative and be used for making high stakes educational decisions.

Psychological Safety: A feeling (explicit or implicit) within a simulation-based activity that participants are comfortable participating, speaking up, sharing thoughts, and asking for help as needed without concern for retribution or embarrassment.   Also, the perception of members of the team that the team is safe for risk taking, and mistakes will be considered learning opportunities rather than there being embarrassment or punitive consequences.

Realism: The ability to impart the suspension of disbelief to the learner by creating an environment that mimics that of the learner’s work environment; realism includes the environment, simulated patient, and activities of the educators, assessors, and/or facilitators.

Role Player: One who assumes the attitudes, actions, and discourse of (another), especially in a make-believe situation, in an effort to understand a differing point of view or social interaction. For example: Nursing students were given a chance to role play a patient or a surgeon. This term is sometimes used interchangeably with the terms ‘simulated’ and ‘standardized patient’ and may include medical, nursing or other health professionals.

Reflective Thinking: The engagement of self-monitoring that occurs during or after a simulation experience…   Also, a process to assist learners in identifying their knowledge gaps and demonstrating the areas in which they may need further improvement; it requires active involvement in the simulation and facilitator guidance to aid in this process.

Safe Learning Environment: A learning environment of mutual respect, support, and respectful communication among leaders and learners; open communication and mutual respect for thought and action encouraged and practiced.

Scenario: In healthcare simulation, a description of a simulation that includes the goals, objectives, debriefing points, narrative description of the clinical simulation, staff requirements, simulation room set up, simulators, props, simulator operation, and instructions for SPs.

Simulated Patient (SP): A person who has been carefully coached to simulate an actual patient so accurately that the simulation cannot be detected by a skilled clinician. In performing the simulation, the SP presents the gestalt of the patient being simulated; not just the history, but the body language, the physical findings, and the emotional and personality characteristics as well (Barrows 1987). Often used interchangeably with standardized patients in the USA and Canada, but in other countries simulated patient is considered a broader term than standardized patient because the simulated patient scenario can be designed to vary the SP role in order to meet the needs of the learner.

Simulated Person: A person who portrays a patient (simulated patient), family member, or healthcare provider in order to meet the objectives of the simulation; a simulated person may also be referred to as a standardized patient/family/healthcare provider if they have been formally trained to act as real patients in order to simulate a set of symptoms or problems used for healthcare education, evaluation, and research. Simulated persons often engage in assessment by providing feedback to the learner.  Also: Confederate.

Simulation: A technique that creates a situation or environment to allow persons to experience a representation of a real event for the purpose of practice, learning, evaluation, testing, or to gain understanding of systems or human actions.

Standardized Patient (SP): An individual trained to portray a patient with a specific condition in a realistic, standardized, and repeatable way and where portrayal/presentation varies based only on learner performance; this strict standardization of performance in a simulated session is what can distinguish standardized patients from simulated patients.

Trigger: An event or events that move the simulation from one state to another.

Virtual Patient: A representation of an actual patient. Virtual patients can take many forms such as software-based physiological simulators, simulated patients, physical manikins and simulators.

Virtual Reality Simulation: Simulations that use a variety of immersive, highly visual, 3D characteristics to replicate real-life situations and/or healthcare procedures; virtual reality simulation is distinguished from computer-based simulation in that it generally incorporates physical or other interfaces such as a computer keyboard, a mouse, speech and voice recognition, motion sensors, or haptic devices.

 

All definitions copied from:  Lopreiato, J. O. (Ed.), Downing, D., Gammon, W., Lioce, L., Sittner, B., Slot, V., Spain, A. E. (Associate Eds.), and the Terminology & Concepts Working Group. (2016). Healthcare Simulation Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.ssih.org/dictionary.

This blog intends to explore the current application of Simulated/Standardized Patient (SP) Methodology in fields outside of health care education.  The impetus for starting this blog is a class assignment in IDE 611: Technologies for Instructional Settings, a graduate level course in the Department of Instructional Design, Development, and Evaluation at Syracuse University’s School of Education.  Dr. Jing Lei is the professor for this course for the Fall semester, 2018.