About the Facilities

AHC Simulation and IERC Services Request Form

Clinical Skills Assessment

Event Orientations

Directions to the IERC

Hear How Faculty Use the IERC

Meet the Staff

Policies and Procedures

Scheduling and Use Guidelines

Simulators

Standardized Patient Program



IERC Home

2-241 Phillips-Wangensteen Building
(Mayo Mail Code 261)
516 Delaware St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

phone (612) 624-9691
fax (612) 624-9690
e-mail: wollx003@umn.edu

Clinical Skills Assessment

Objective Structured Clinical Exams

The Center provides facilities and design services for the creation and implementation of assessments such as objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs), group OSCEs (GOSCEs), and structured clinical instruction modules (SCIMs).

OSCEs provide a controlled, standardized format for testing students’ communication, diagnostic, and/or procedural skills by using patients who are trained to simulate specific medical conditions.

For more on OSCEs and standardized patients, visit the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Web site.

Simulations

While there is a great deal of material on simulations and specific procedural skills in disciplinary journals (especially in emergency medicine, anesthesia, and surgery), general resources are available.

For an overview on the use of simulations in health sciences education, see the following articles by James Gordon, director of the Program in Medical Simulation at Harvard:

"Practicing' Medicine without Risk: Students' and Educators' Responses to High-Fidelity Patient Simulations" Academic Medicine 76:5.

"The Human Patient Simulator: Acceptance and Efficacy as a Teaching Tool for Students" Academic Medicine 75:5.

Also see the 1997 volume of Caduceus (13:2), which was devoted to simulations in medical education. It includes a comprehensive history of simulations in medical education (focusing on standardized patients) and of the first patient simulator (Sim One) that was developed in the late 1960s.