Unprofessional Behaviors Can Be Identified by Standardized Patients During an Objective Structured Clinical Exercise

Abstract Introduction This assessment tool was developed to be used by standardized patients (SPs) to assess medical student professionalism. It was piloted during a seven-station objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) for 100 students at the end of their third year. Methods The SPs used this checklist to assist them in identifying unprofessional behavior during one of the cases that centered on disclosure of a medication error. Results Upon review of the checklists from all seven stations, 210 unacceptable ratings (URs) were captured, averaging 2.1 URs per student with 12 URs being the maximum a student received. One hundred thirteen URs were recorded in the medication error case alone. For this case, students with no previous academic or professionalism problems in the previous year averaged 1.7 URs; students with previous academic problems only averaged 2.7 URs; students with previous professionalism problems only averaged 3.6 URs; students with both previous professionalism and academic problems averaged 5.9 URs. Discussion Students who previously had professionalism problems were more likely to have higher numbers of URs reported, showing that SPs can identify unprofessional behaviors and that this checklist was an effective tool for this.