STAR Center across missions

The STAR Center serves as a resource for several MCW programs that train members throughout our community. The Periscope Project, which promotes maternal mental health awareness, recently used our standardized patients to portray pregnant women struggling with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, the Periscope Project hosted a one-day conference, “Building Capacity to Address Maternal Mental Health Conditions” to train non-psychiatric providers on this aspect of patient care.

The Department of Family and Community Medicine hosts an annual winter conference that involves our standardized patients, or SPs. The Winter Refresher Course, a regional conference held in Milwaukee, attracts more than 250 family practitioners, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and residents. During this event, our SPs work with the providers to practice lower leg examinations.

Kern’s KinetiC3 program recently utilized an adaptable prime-act-reflect model for teaching psychomotor and other bedside skills on real patients.

The primary objectives were to use the one-minute preceptor model and sense-making approaches to understand what a trainee is thinking and to focus on taking care of the patient in the "here and now;" employ effective hooks to engage learners, such as using the learner's name, capitalizing on your physical presence, and having the learner project into the future; and encourage advanced, high-performing trainees to teach the team and role model communication with families.

Another focus was developing situational awareness. This was to help the learner recognize when trainees, family members, and/or other members of the team are uncomfortable and are feeling their psychological safety threatened; respectfully manage questions and disruptions from family members and nurses during rounds; prepare the team for anticipated clinical events.

In addition, the STAR Center serves as a resource for various interprofessional education, or IPE, events hosted by the medical and pharmacy schools. During these events, students from affiliates such as Columbia College of Nursing, Concordia College, Marquette University, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee work with MCW students to learn about multidisciplinary patient care.

“The interactive role play offered attendees an opportunity to refine their interviewing skills in a realistic situation. The standardized patients were able to demonstrate the often-nuanced details of how these conditions may present themselves in a clinical setting. We were able to work with the standardized patients in advance of the conference to provide direction and context for the simulation which resulted in meaningful and realistic clinical interview demonstrations.”Audrey Laszewski, Program Administrator | The Periscope Project