Designing and Delivering a Task-Based, Structured, Standardized Patient Encounter Session in Clinical Skills Courses

Clinical skills (CS) are linchpins of medical school curricula, integrated across all four years of training. Medical schools vary noticeably in how they deliver CS content, particularly during the pre-clerkship years, and much of that variability reflects the absence of a standardized structure for small group CS sessions. A well-defined session structure ensures consistent learning opportunities to practice the full range of required clinical reasoning-based tasks: hypothesis-driven history taking, physical examination, prioritized differential diagnosis formulation, diagnostic and initial therapeutic planning, encounter closure, and oral case presentation. Given the inherent constraints of allotted session time and course duration, ensuring equitable student participation in a small group setting is a persistent challenge. To address this, we developed a structured approach to delivering standardized patient encounter-based CS content that allows regular practice of all assigned session tasks throughout the course. Upon introduction of the new method, students immediately recognized its positive impact; a sentiment that triggered adopting the method among faculty and then conducting a study to explore students’ insight into its effectiveness. The study included a five-point Likert scale survey, related open-ended questions, and statistical and content analyses. The results showed high ratings (4.27/5 and 4.31/5), supported by positive sentiments on the impact on skills development, teamwork, and opportunities to practice a comprehensive range of CS. Our task-based, structured, standardized patient encounter method not only promotes equitable learning opportunities but could also enhance CS acquisition through basic clinical sciences integration and optimization of faculty capacity to deliver CS sessions and evaluate students’ learning effectively.