This study explored the value of using medical students as standardized patients (SPs) during objective structured clinical examinations for the medical interview. Evaluations by both examiners and examinees revealed that the performance of medical students as SPs provided sufficient reality and reproducibility for the objective evaluation of interview skills. The experience also offered medical students playing SPs the opportunity to learn the importance to patients of eye contact and of a sympathetic and reliable attitude on the part of physicians toward their patients during the medical interview. In conclusion, training medical students to serve as SPs for evaluating interviewing skills in the context of an objective structured clinical examination is beneficial to both the person being evaluated and to the medical student serving as the SP.

1. 5-HT inhibits spontaneous fluid secretion as well as stimulated secretion with secretin (cAMP mediated) or ACh (Ca2+ mediated) in the isolated guinea pig pancreatic ducts. 2. The inhibitory effect of 5-HT is reversible and is dependent on the concentration in the range 0.01-0.1 microM, which is much lower than those that affect intestinal motility and secretion. 3. The 5-HT3 receptor in duct cells appears to mediate the inhibitory effect of 5-HT. 4. [Ca2+]i is unlikely to mediate the inhibitory effect of 5-HT.
5-Methoxytryptamine/pharmacology ; Acetylcholine/pharmacology ; Animal ; Calcium/metabolism ; Guinea Pigs ; Pancreatic Ducts/metabolism* ; Pancreatic Ducts/drug effects ; Secretin/pharmacology ; Serotonin/pharmacology ; Serotonin/metabolism* ; Serotonin/analogs & derivatives* ; Vasodilator Agents/pharmacology

No abstract available.
Animal ; Bicarbonates/metabolism* ; Biological Transport/physiology ; Pancreatic Ducts/metabolism* ; Perfusion