The Robert Berger, DO Clinical Learning and Assessment Center gives students the opportunity to practice clinical skills, develop crucial communication skills and demonstrate that they have achieved clinical competence. Through the use of standardized patients and a human patient simulator, the Center allows students to practice with patients in a supportive environment prior to treating real patients. Patient conditions and problems can be developed and altered to suit educational objectives and allow students to successfully and confidently transition into practice. Medical, physician assistant and psychology students all use the program, amounting to over 1,100 students a year participating in the program.

The driving force behind the standardized patient program was the late Robert Berger, DO ’58, associate dean for undergraduate medical education and chairman of pediatrics. He passionately believed in humanizing the doctor-patient relationship and believed that tomorrow’s physicians would have to be expert communicators.

Dr. Berger launched PCOM’s standardized patient program in the late 1980s with fourth-year students and residents serving as "patient-actors" for second-year students. A pilot study for the program, based on a model from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, was conducted in 1990. The standardized patient program in the Clinical Learning and Assessment Center began in 1993 under the direction of Dr. Berger, Jeffrey Freeman, DO, divisional chairman, endocrinology, and Tony Errichetti, PhD, director of the program.

Learn More About:
Standardized Patients
Human Patient Simulator