Excellence in Innovative Instructional Delivery (Team Honor)

Medical students develop personal and professional self-awareness and understand groups, team dynamics and health systems through the three-year Community Service Learning and Leadership program of the Department of Family Medicine & Simulation Center. This Rowan-Virtua SOM program was recently enhanced with standardized patient encounters in the second year to help prepare students for difficult situations and conversations and, in turn, help them support their patients and colleagues. In this simulated environment, actors portray patients and students practice clinical, medical and communication skills. They also identify implicit bias and microaggressions, which are associated with adverse patient outcomes. When the Simulation Center performed a pilot with fourth-year students, they enthusiastically supported introducing this type of content in the second year. It provides an opportunity for students to discuss ways they could have approached various cases and what they may have missed. The standardized patient encounter “forced us to think on our feet and really think about how we would deal with these situations in real life,” says a student.