First mock patient interview

Today was our first videotaped mock patient interview.  This is how it works.  You dress up in business/professional attire and go to a place called the Harrell Center.

Holy optical illusion Batman! Both sides of this image are the same length.  Go ahead and check it yourself.

 This is a simulation lab for health care professions students.  They have a bunch of exam rooms that are set up just like a normal doctor's office.  Each room has a couple video cameras in it.  We got paired up with another classmate and had to take turns being the patient and PA.  As the patient, you had to come with a simple malady and a researched list of symptoms.  As the PA, it was your duty to obtain an HPI or History of Present Illness.

The HPI consists of eliciting from the patient the "sacred seven" or the 7 attributes of a symptom: Palliative/Provocative factors, Quality, Region, Severity, Timing, and Associated manifestations.  So, at the Harrell Center, your partner waits in the room and you, as the "PA" stand outside the room and wait for the man to come on the intercom and say something to the effect of "You may now begin the interview."  Then you enter the door and do your best to conduct a thorough HPI in the 10 mins that they give you.

About an hour afterwards, they upload your video to your account on their website so you can watch it and determine how big a fool you just made of yourself.

I kinda had a leg up on my classmates though, because I did something similar every week at the MTC.  We would have to "teach" investigators and then watch game-tape.

Here I am afterward with my awesome classmate Fallon.

I look like a freakin giant

She did a great job playing the PA, and I was an awesome patient (I had amoebic dysentery...i.e. abdominal cramps and diarrhea).

I think I did a pretty good job being the PA.  Granted, we had a lot of time to practice before-hand, but it's still easy to forget things when you're put on the spot like that.