Use of standardized patients in a freshman emergency medicine course.

The curriculum of our freshman emergency medicine course now includes group interviews with standardized patients to introduce communication skills more effectively to students. Our goals for the standardized patient encounters are 1) to start the interview learning process in a nonthreatening environment, 2) to begin to use rudimentary techniques to obtain a history of present illness, 3) to gain insight into a patient's perception of a medical interview, and 4) to learn to project empathy and compassion when talking with patients. The standardized patients technique is one method emergency medicine educators can use to maximize effectiveness in undergraduate medical education.