Incorporating standardized patients into a psychosocial nurse practitioner program

Interactions with standardized patients (SPs) provide customized, immediate clinical learning for graduate nursing students. SPs are lay persons trained to portray a role in a faculty-designed health care scenario for a series of students. Student learning results from the experience of the encounter, performance feedback from the SP, subsequent classroom discussion with peers, faculty critique, and review of the videotaped interaction. Design and implementation of an SP experience involves clarification of goals for the encounter, development of the clinical scenario, recruitment and training of SPs, preparation of students, and management of the logistics of the exercise. Although the process is labor-intensive, we have found SP experiences versatile, valuable, and popular with students.