Six formats in simulated and standardized patients use, based on experiences of 13 undergraduate medical curricula in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Background: In Belgium and the Netherlands, 13 medical schools collaborate with regard to the use of simulated patients (SPs) and standardized patients in their undergraduate curricula. All schools use SPs in their curriculum but schools differ in (a) the timing or placement of the SPs and (b) the way they are used.

Aim: To give an overview of the formats used most in undergraduate medical education with SPs, including a description of the impact of these formats on the different aspects of SPs.

Teaching and training in breaking bad news at the Dutch medical schools: a comparison.

Background: Physicians consider breaking bad news (BBN) a difficult task, and training is therefore necessary. There is much variety in what schools consider to be best practice and best timing for such training. This article discusses BBN-programmes at the Dutch medical schools.

Familial disease with a risk of sudden death: a longitudinal study of the psychological consequences of predictive testing for long QT syndrome.

Background: Since 1996, in the Netherlands, cardiac and molecular screening has been performed in families with the long QT syndrome, a potentially life-threatening but treatable cardiac arrhythmia syndrome. The psychological consequences of predictive cardiac and molecular screening in these families are relatively unknown.

Objective: A psychological study was initiated to investigate the extent and course of distress caused by this new form of predictive genetic testing.

The impact of assessing simulated bad news consultations on medical students' stress response and communication performance.

Seventy second-year medical students volunteered to participate in a study with the aim of evaluating the impact of the assessment of simulated bad news consultations on their physiological and psychological stress and communication performance. Measurements were taken of salivary cortisol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, state anxiety and global stress using a Visual Analogue Scale. The subjects were asked to take three salivary cortisol samples on the assessment day as well as on a quiet control day, and to take all other measures 5 min before and 10 min after conducting the bad news consultation.

Can parents adjust to the idea that their child is at risk for a sudden death?: Psychological impact of risk for long QT syndrome.

Can a parent adjust to the idea that its child is at risk for a sudden death? This question is raised by a diagnostic procedure in which children were tested for an inherited Long QT Syndrome (LQTS). This potentially life-threatening but treatable cardiac arrhythmia syndrome may cause sudden death, especially in children and young adults. The long-term psychological effects are described for parents whose children were tested for inherited LQTS.