Paula Stillman MD

Dr. Paula Stillman, M.D., a renowned pediatrician, created the Arizona Clinical Interview Rating Scale (ACIRS) in 1977. Upon joining UMass Medical School, she started training SPs into patient instructors who would be able to assess and give feedback to medical learners at clinical practice examinations. ACIRS was updated into the Master Interview Rating Scale (MIRS). An SP consortium was formed among medical schools nearby. Thus begins one of the very first organized, large-scale standardized patient programs in the U.S.

She developed and validated the Arizona Clinical Interview Rating Scale, an important tool for scoring competence in clinical examination. She trained mothers to simulate problems for student assessment in pediatrics. She developed the technique of patient instructors that could assess students and residents in their abilities to evaluate patients' problems.

Along with Dave Swanson, she developed an extensive assessment of residents' skills in many of the New England schools. At the University of Massachusetts, she also developed a program to assess the diagnostic performances of fourth-year students.

More recently, Dr. Stillman has directed and coordinated a large-scale multi-center pilot with the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates using standardized patients to assess the abilities of foreign medical graduates to enter residency training in the United States. This valuable study should provide us with many insights about the use of standardized patients to assess residents."