<p>Just wondering-
in med school, the "doctors" obviously practice exams and procedures. DO people just volunteer for this or is everything done on dummies/models.</p>
<p>There are dummies for the rougher procedures.</p>
<p>Patients volunteer (their docs ask them to volunteer) for the safer ones--such as a routine physical exam, or taking a patient history.</p>
<p>I haven't actually done either of them yet, but that's what I hear from med students in the years above me.</p>
<p>In some cases there are sophisticated simulators that involve complex computers, etc. to help practice various procedures. Vanderbilt is the only school I know of that has their simulator online at the moment, but many other schools at least have such plans.</p>
<p>In most cases, though, there are at least standardized patients for practicing exams and taking histories.</p>
<p>My school puts ads in the newspaper, recruits at local theatre groups and so on. There are plenty of retired folks who participate. Our standardized patient program is pretty time intensive as the SP's come in probably 2x a month during a weekday afternoon (one week for the M2's, one for the M1's) and then ~3x a semester on saturday for a very long day (our Objective Standardized Clinical Exams - OSCE's - oskee's). Sometimes it is even more often than that during the week. They also recruited honors biology students to come in during our sessions on interviewing adolescents. </p>
<p>We also have osce's during our M3 and M4 years - in prep for Step 2 CS. Our Internal medicine osce is much more difficult than the Step 2 CS though, and so my school has had near 100% pass rates since the inception of that test.</p>
<p>My next osce is on the 30th...have to take a complete history, give a full physical, and then write it all up. An hour with the patient for the H&P and then an hour and a half to write it up...</p>
<p>For Duke undergrads, there were rare occasions we were put in contact with SP's too. They were actually professional actors, some of whom made their livings doing this, but most of whom did this as side semi-charity work.</p>
<p>We've had one SP here so far in med school (it's only my third week, after all), and his demeanor afterwards was clearly that of a professional actor.</p>