Standard patients play important role in health education

With makeup, gauze pads, Q-tips and a hair dryer at the ready, the simulation team went to work July 13.

It was the annual burn simulation at the Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences. Seven standard patients were sitting in chairs as members of the simulation team applied moulage and bandages to them, making them appear as burn victims.

After a near two-hour prep, physical therapy and occupational therapy students assessed the standard patients during a lab exercise.

Cindy Bartman, standard patient coordinator, said PT students learned how to get a burn patient up and moving, and occupational therapy students gained a better understanding of how to help burn victims adapt when they leave the hospital.

Each standard patient had a different scenario to present to students. Laurie Elders, for example, portrayed a patient who attempted suicide by trying to light a gas stove in her trailer. Others had mishaps with fireworks and one man lit a cigarette while putting gasoline in his lawn mower.

Elders said the acting is what drew her to the standard patient program. “We usually get to make up our own backgrounds,” she said.

A standard patient since January, Elders said she has portrayed a patient with depression and “an old, cranky lady.”

Bartman said the community people who participate in the program are invaluable to students. “It’s a dynamic educational tool for our students,” Bartman said. “Our standard patients, at the end of a simulation, will give constructive feedback to the students.”