Standardized Synchronized

Standardized patients help medical students practice their clinical and interpersonal skills in preparation for their medical licensing exams. This documentary depicts the work of standardized patients (SPs) in a simulation clinic environment as they perform encounters with medical students. To provide each student an equal learning opportunity the patient portrayals needs to be standardized and synchronized. During these encounters, both the students and the SPs are being monitored and assessed in their performance. In order to maintain the “standard” the SPs take turns grading each other’s quality of affect as well as the accuracy and correct amount of information they give to the student. This film is the result of an arts-based research project in medical education and a research fellowship in the Medical Futures Lab at Rice University. In this project, the artist-researcher develops cinematic-performative ways to explore the standardized patients’ work and undergoes training to become a standardized patient herself.