Simulated Patient Program

Our Simulated Patient Program is a vital part of health and medical education at UQ.

We invite community members to portray the symptoms of various health conditions to help students learn to diagnose and treat these conditions.

We're looking for adults who represent different parts of society and vary in terms of age, culture, language, ethnicity and life experience to offer our students a unique ‘patient’ perspective to learning.

Participants get paid to attend training sessions and simulated patient activities.  

How to apply

What you’ll be involved in

‘Simulated patients’ are used in a variety of programs offered by the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences. By becoming a simulated patient, you’ll be helping our future doctors, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists in their education.

Teaching tasks

In teaching sessions, simulated patients portray a specific patient case working with a small group of students or an individual student, with or without a tutor. This approach allows students to develop their reasoning and communication skills in a realistic, safe environment.

An important role for simulated patients is to ask the students to reflect on their performance and then provide feedback from the patient perspective – this is a unique situation and provides an important learning opportunity for the student that will not occur with real patients.

Assessment tasks

Simulated patients are regularly required for medical students' Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), which are held during the year. These examinations are designed to assess students' communication and interpersonal skills as well as their diagnostic abilities through effective interviewing and/or examining of the simulated patient.

Specialised simulated patients

Most simulated patients perform role-plays – telling a patient story – for the students to practise their clinical skills. However, there are some simulated patients trained in physical examination as well to allow students practice in this area, for example examining the chest.

Eligibility

There are no particular qualifications to become a simulated patient. We require people from all walks of life, across the adult age ranges, and from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

How to apply

1. Contact the Simulate Patient Program Coordinator on the details below.
2. Complete an online questionnaire and attend an interview – this gives both us and you an opportunity to see if you are suited to this type of work.

You can apply to become a simulated patient at any time.

Contact

Simulated Patient Program Coordinator
+61 7 3163 3660
spp@uq.edu.au

Training

Simulated patients receive training for each role they portray. For experienced simulated patients or small role-plays, the training may be held 30 minutes before the assignment.

Assessment activity training

For assessment activities, the training is more intensive. Playing the patient role consistently is extremely important for any examinations, which are designed to be a fair and objective assessment of each student's skills.

To ensure a standard patient performance across simulated patients, case scripts and role training are provided 1 week before each examination and attendance at examination training sessions is compulsory. This training is usually 1 to 2 hours long.

Working conditions

If you are accepted, you can choose to leave the Simulated Patient Program at any time.

Similarly, we may ask you to leave the program if you are not suited to the work. 

In order to be paid for your work as a simulated patient, you will need to become a casual employee of The University of Queensland. When you join the program, you'll receive an information pack with the human resources (HR) information that you need to complete to become an employee. The HR process commences once you accept an assignment.

Simulated patients are paid to attend training sessions, as well as for their work in simulated patient sessions or examinations. It is a minimum of 2 hours training and a minimum of 3 hours work.

It is important to remember that every time you work for the Simulated Patient Program, you need to complete a casual timesheet at the venue where the assignment is carried out. Completed timesheets should be submitted to the Simulated Patient Coordinator. It is your responsibility to submit a pay claim after you complete your work.

Confidentiality, punctuality and reliability

We require simulated patients to attend all activities they have committed to and be punctual. This is particularly important for student examinations, as one late arrival or non-attendance can hold up the entire examination and have serious consequences for students.

It is also essential that you maintain confidentiality, and that you do not:

• discuss scripts, scenarios or patient cases in a public place
• discuss scripts, scenarios or patient cases with others apart from those in the program
• leave written materials in an area where they may be seen or taken
• discuss any particular student, examiner or other simulated patient outside the program.

Doing so may jeopardise examinations and lead to an unfair advantage for some students. All simulated patients are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement to say that they understand and will abide by these conditions.

Similarly, we ask both you and the students to respect each other's privacy. This includes:

• keeping student performance confidential
• not sharing personal information with a student
• not asking a student for personal information about themselves
• acknowledging each other simply as student and teacher outside the teaching/assessment environment without particular details.

Feedback and debriefing

After an examination session, a feedback form is provided to allow you to comment on aspects such as the patient case, the preparation for the role and examiner behaviour. The examiners also fill in a feedback form on the performance of the simulated patient.

This feedback guides us in the support we can offer simulated patients, how to improve patient cases and any other concerns.

At the end of an assessment session the simulated patients meet the coordinator to debrief. This involves discussing the session, any concerns, and most importantly taking time to ‘come out of role’ – essential when the role-play was particularly emotional.

Occasionally you will have had an upsetting or emotional event that may be remembered with a particular role that you are asked to play. Make this known to the coordinator who will be able to assist, change the role if required or offer you a debriefing session. Your welfare is important to the program.