I suck at SPs...

[medsurg2010]

I'm just a second year with an evil school that makes us do multiple standardized patients at the end of the semester. Anyway, I totally suck at these encounters. For whatever reason I am just really horrible at acting and instead I just go through the motions... I get good feedback from the SPs but I miss a ton of checks because I just can't imagine that they are practical--There must be something I am not grasping, why in the world do I do a CAGE on an acute stroke patient?

I'm totally lost even with trying to read FA Step 2CS but I need to find a way to do this efficiently. Any advice on the acting part of this exam??

PS- I'm not taking CS until 4th year or whenever....but we have multiple SPs through 2nd and 3rd year.


Tuck the knees and jump through the hoop, I know.

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[bigfrank]

First off, take emotion, empathy, and caring completely OUT of the equation.

Keep in mind that these SPs have a simple checklist (social history? family history? chief complaint? review of sytems?), by which you will be graded.

Fake empathy. This is a good tool for the 3rd year too.

..

Just try and do the basic things in the time allotted. Don't waste time holding their hand or anything like that.

Now, of course, a fake-empathetic hand-touching is important though!!

It's all about learing to play the game. If you have any specific ?s, please don't hesitate to PM me.

 

[jrf331]

It is all about the checklists. That is all you have to remember with SP's. Just do as many things you can in the time alloted. No one cares if you show empathy or really care about an SP, because the the Sps are too busy trying to remember if you did everything on their check list

as said before you can fake being nice and showing empathy.

get as many points as possible as fast as you can.