Reforming the ‘standardized’ doctor

Abstract

In this personal viewpoint, I grapple with the barrier I felt creating authentic relationships with my patients. Through this introspection, I examine the medical school experience with the standardized patients, exploring how this training may have promoted my emotional disengagement. I then promote an alternative for medical schools to increase student exposure to patients early in their training, as a way to learn vital history taking and physical exam techniques while still allowing them to create genuine relationships with their patients. Finally, I discuss my experience with this curriculum at my institution and the effect it has had on my own as well as my students’ clinical experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Ian Gleaner

Ian Gleaner, MD, Instructor of Medicine, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University and Cooper University Hospital, Camden, NJ.