One time things: Gynacology

There are only three occasions when the school uses "professional patients". Two involve using actors to assess our (verbal) clinical interactions: history taking in first year and breaking bad news in second year. The only time we do an examination on anyone other than each other or hospital patients is the "clinical teaching associates" program designed to give us our first try at the breast examination, pap smears and pelvic exams in a non (well, less) threatening environment. I don't envy the women their jobs but I do think it is good that the first time we performed these procedures was with a patient who was less scared of it than we were.