Become a Standardized Patient

Standardized patients are people who are trained to play the roles of real patients in simulated healthcare interactions.

A student faces a seated patient and her mother.
A student conducts a simulated exam involving a patient and her mother, played by standardized patients Bridget and Nancy Brown. This simulation is about working with patients with disabilities.

Standardized patients — also sometimes called SPs or simulated participants — are people who are specially trained to play the roles of real patients in interactions with healthcare students so the students can practice and be tested on skills such as:

  • Conducting physical exams
  • Communicating with patients and their families
  • Taking medical histories
  • Educating and counseling patients

Knowledgeable staff and faculty trains SPs to play specific medical cases, as well as to give meaningful, supportive feedback to students about how the interaction went.

SPs are invaluable in nursing education, giving students the chance to test their classroom knowledge in the realest kind of simulations: those with actual human interactions.

Become a standardized patient

The UIC College of Nursing’s Schwartz Simulation Laboratory in Chicago is expanding its SP pool. People interested in becoming standardized patient for our program should know the following:

  • SPs are part of the educational team, focused on fulfilling the learning objectives of a simulation activity.
  • SPs portray either patients (with a wide variety of ailments) or family members of patients.
  • SPs provide feedback to our learners on their communication skills and how the SP felt as the learner’s patient. Both are for the purpose of training and educating nursing students.
  • SP events in the Schwartz Simulation Lab can be just a few hours or an entire day. They are sporadic, depending on faculty requests, and the patient demographic needed. Each semester, an SP might perform just a few or more than 10 simulations.
  • Simulations take place both in person on the Chicago campus (845 S. Damen Ave., Chicago) and virtually via the Zoom.
  • Pay is $25/hour with a four-hour minimum, plus any study or training time.

Fill out the form below to inquire about becoming a standardized patient in UIC Nursing’s Schwartz Lab.