Conversations About Driving Retirement with Older Adults

This scenario was developed for Swiss medical undergraduates (fourth year students in a 6-year program) in their communications training track with Simulated Participants (SPs). For the sake of simplicity, the patient is referred to as Jan Gerber. This is a gender-neutral name and SPs of any gender can portray Jan. When preparing the station for use, add the pronoun salutation that reflects the SP’s gender and pronoun (e.g., Mr./Ms./Mrs./Mx.).
Jan Gerber is an older adult patient who recently suffered a stroke. Treatment and rehabilitation were quite successful. A residual homonymous hemianopsia, however, means that they should not be driving a car anymore, a matter that Jan is unaware of so far. Jan thinks that today’s visit to the family physician is just about a blood test. The physician (portrayed by the learner) will have to break the bad news that Jan is unsafe to drive.
Preparatory reading material and video-enriched web-based resources are provided to the students prior to the SP encounter, which is 15 min long. Preparatory material includes medical factual knowledge so students can focus on communication during the encounter. Students meet the SP in pairs, in turn taking the physician’s role and that of a silent observer as they rotate through four separate scenarios all focused on different aspects of communication training: breaking bad news, motivational interviewing, taking a sexual history, and getting informed consent. Fifteen minutes for feedback is scheduled immediately following the SP encounter. The SP provides feedback from their perspective in the role of the patient and moderates the feedback process which involves the integration of their perspective with the student’s self-reflections.