Standardized patient feedback: making it work across disciplines.

In health professions education, feedback can be defined as the sharing of information about a student's performance. The most valuable learning occurs when students receive detailed feedback delivered in a way they can utilize it. In clinical simulations, feedback from a standardized patient (SP) offers a unique perspective. This article presents some of the underlying theory and research on feedback delivery with a particular emphasis on the role of non-verbal communication. We explore what feedback students need from SPs, how to provide feedback effectively as well as common challenges to the process. The authors, working from different health care disciplines, collaborated to develop a training workshop for the college's SPs designed to ensure a consistent approach to SP feedback delivery. We describe this workshop and its outcomes.