Interviewing Teen Parents: Simulated Patient Experience for Clinical Education and Outreach

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Pediatric History Taking
• Simulation-Based Learning

Background:

• Medical students traditionally gain pediatric history-taking experience in later clerkships.
• There's a growing trend towards earlier clinical exposure in medical training.
• This study addresses the need for early pediatric clinical experience for pre-clerkship students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce second-year medical students to pediatric history-taking before their clerkship.
• To enhance students' skills in interviewing adolescent caregivers of infants.
• To engage underrepresented minority (URM) high school students in a medical simulation.

Main Methods:

• A simulation-based session was developed for second-year medical students.
• Teenagers from medical academies served as standardized patients (SPs), portraying parents of infants.
• Medical students practiced eliciting pediatric histories, receiving faculty feedback and documenting the encounter.

Main Results:

• Medical students reported improved skills in communicating with pediatric caregivers.
• Students gained experience in obtaining infant histories from teenage parents.
• Teenage SPs developed a greater appreciation for medical education and found the experience valuable.

Conclusions:

• The session provided pre-clerkship students with pediatric history-taking experience.
• It successfully engaged URiM high school students in the medical education pipeline.
• This model can be replicated to promote diversity and early clinical exposure in medical schools.