Interviews: Applicants to Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick treat simulated patients at Regional Hospital

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BRUCE BARTLETT
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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SAINT JOHN - More than 80 of Canada's best and brightest streamed through the doors of the Saint John Regional Hospital last weekend for interviews, hoping to get into the Dalhousie medical school program next fall, including 30 spots opening in New Brunswick for the first time.

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KâtÈ Braydon/Telegraph-Journal

Frank MacLean teaches medical students using a patient simulator.

Instead of putting each applicant in front of a panel of about 10 people, the medical school now uses the multi-mini interview system, called MMI, said Frank MacLean, a simulated patient educator.

Each student goes to 10 different interviews on various topics, including one where they deal with a person pretending to be a patient.

"My job is to train the simulated patients to portray the case that is going to be involved with this particular interview process," MacLean said.

He is a biologist who works with the doctors at the medical school in Halifax to prepare the simulated patients with a script, and also sometimes takes on the role himself.

"In simulation it's a very structured role-playing because the idea is to portray the case to achieve a learning objective the medical students need," he said. "Ideally the best learning environment for our medical students is a real patient with a real problem, but we can't often get that."

In Halifax he has about 300 people on call, half of them with some connection to the acting profession, who come in when needed.

The process starts with the doctors at the medical school putting together a list of things they want to teach the students. It ranges from being able to take a basic medical history, to performing a physical exam, to developing listening and questioning skills in order to come up with a diagnosis.

All those situations begin with the professors writing case studies, based on their medical knowledge, followed by MacLean looking at them from a training perspective to figure out how to coach someone to present the required symptoms.

Using simulated patients for the medical school interview process is quite new, but they are used extensively for students in the program. Each simulated case has a check list of items.

"If I was doing a cardiovascular clinic and I want my student to know how to do a cardiovascular exam, there are certain things they would have to do with their stethoscope, there are certain questions they would have to ask," he said.

When simulated patients are used there is always an examiner watching and evaluating, he said.

The simulation process has been found to be very effective in developing a doctor's communication skills, he said.

Not every medical school uses the multi-mini interview process, but students who are chosen that way do better and are more successful in their Medical Council of Canada exams, MacLean said.

It will be sometime before students know if they are accepted, because other interviews are scheduled for February in Nova Scotia.

Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick is accepting 30 students next fall while the main campus in Halifax will take 76, said Mary McIntosh, communications manager for the program.

All New Brunswick students will do their training in Saint John but students from other parts of the country can do their interviews in Saint John and possibly end up in Halifax.