A Standardized or Standard Patient (SP) is a healthy person trained to portray the personal history, physical symptoms, emotional characteristics, and everyday concerns of an actual patient.

SPs are a dynamic educational tool for a variety of settings such as interactive teaching environments, group demonstrations, clinical examinations, videos or portrayal customized to meet the faculty's needs.

SPs are trained to provide constructive feedback, from the patients unique perspective, to learners at all levels of training in several health disciplines.

Why Use Standard Patients?

Standard Patients offer a safe, professional environment for students to learn, practice, and receive feedback.

Hospitalized patients are much more ill now than in years past and the average hospital stay is shorter than it was even five years ago. This makes it more difficult for students to get the variety of experiences necessary for them to develop the confidence and skills required to become a successful practitioner.

SPs play a very important role in providing students the opportunity to develop clinical and communications skills. Simulation also provides a positive educational experience in which students learn to collaborate with multidisciplinary members of the health care team.

The History of Standard Patients

The first Standardized Patient was conceived by neurologist Dr. Harold Barrows in the 1960s.

Barrows found that the real patients available for teaching and examination were not providing consistent and valuable experiences for his medical students and the patients were often too sick to practice on. 

The first Standard Patient program in the U.S. was begun at Southern Illinois University in the late 1960s, and was introduced at Grand Valley State University in the fall of 1998.

The term "standard patient" is used because the goal is to standardize the SP so the students get the same consistent experience and get evaluated the same way.

"The Simulated/Standardized Patient (SP) is 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."            

-Dr. Howard Barrows