Assessing the Impact of Standardized Patient Encounters on Students' Medical History-taking Skills in Practice.

To investigate whether exposing students to professional standardized patients (SPs) in a didactic course would impact the transferability of students' medical history-taking skills to practice. In 2018, peer role-play and virtual simulation activities were used to teach medical history-taking in a first-year physical assessment and medication administration course. An unannounced SP evaluated students' medical history-taking skills during a subsequent community introductory pharmacy practice experience (IPPE) using a 17-item medical history checklist.

Use of a virtual patient simulation program to enhance the physical assessment and medical history taking skills of doctor of pharmacy students.

Introduction: To evaluate if utilizing a virtual simulated patient program in a required pharmacy course improves the health history taking and physical assessment skills of first-year professional pharmacy students.

Methods: During a 14-week course students registered for a web-based virtual patient simulation program. Students were assigned a virtual patient case to complete during weeks one and 13 of the course.