%0 Journal Article
%T The use of standardized patients for mock oral board exams in neurology: a pilot study
%A Brett Kissela
%A Steven Harris
%A Dawn Kleindorfer
%A Christopher Lindsell
%A Robert Pascuzzi
%A Daniel Woo
%A Jerzy Szaflarski
%A Daniel Kanter
%A Alex Schneider
%A Michael Sostok
%A Joseph Broderick
%J BMC Medical Education
%D 2006
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1472-6920-6-22
%X Three cases were created and then used for this mock oral boards exercise utilizing trained standardized patients. Residents from the University of Cincinnati and Indiana University participated in the exam. Residents were scored by attending physician examiners who directly observed the encounter with the standardized patient. The standardized patient also assessed each resident. A post-test survey was administered to ascertain participant's satisfaction with the examination process.Resident scores were grouped within one standard deviation of the mean, with the exception of one resident who was also subjectively felt to "fail" the exam. In exams with two faculty "evaluators", scores were highly correlated. The survey showed satisfaction with the examination process in general.Standardized patients can be used for mock oral boards in the live patient format. Our initial experience with this examination process was positive. Further testing is needed to determine if this examination format is more reliable and valid than traditional methods of assessing resident competency.Currently, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) utilizes a live patient hour as one form of assessing candidates during the Step Two examination. This includes thirty minutes for the candidate to obtain a history and perform a physical examination on a patient with a neurologic disorder, and is followed by questioning in which candidates explain their thought process for evaluating the patient. Concerns have been raised about the reliability and validity of this exam, since the experience is not standardized. For example, some patients may openly reveal their diagnosis, or the diagnosis may be more readily evident than for other patients. For these reasons, the ABPN plans to replace the patient hour with other forms of assessment by 2008.[1]Residency programs commonly test their residents in "mock oral board exercises" that simulate the ABPN patient hour, using actual patients wit
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/6/22