EVMS School of Health Professions Faculty Publications

ORCID

0009-0006-3899-425X (Wallace)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.1186/s41077-026-00480-5

Publication Title

Advances in Simulation

Volume

11

Issue

1

Pages

54

Abstract

As we celebrate the publication of the Association of SP Educators Standards of Best Practice (ASPE SOBP) for Physical Exam Teaching Associates (PETAs) and corresponding literature review, we, elected leaders of ASPE, offer reflections on SP methodology history, current practices, and future opportunities. Our aim is to contextualize this addition to what is now the third SOBP publication [1, 2] that guides the global simulation community on best practices of simulated participant (SP) methodology.

Thank you to the ASPE members and SP Educators who made time to share their expertise as authors on these new standards- in addition to their daily work of actively recruiting, hiring, coaching, and safeguarding PETAs. The PETA standards and companion paper outline the global standards of practice for individuals who work with PETAs. PETAs are individuals who engage learners while teaching with their own body as the model for instruction. It is important to note that as with all the SP methodology, there can be great variation in the application of this methodology. Readers will notice the consistent framework associated with safety and inclusion of all collaborators in the design and implementation of work with PETAs. This is because the added human component of an individual (SP/GTA/MUTA/PETA) who is not a clinician or learner engaging in the educational process requires an intentional commitment to stewardship of that perspective. SP Educators are integral to this process because they are the professionals entrusted with safeguarding and advocating for PETAs while they focus on directly teaching learners. The PETA standards echo this in the domains related to safety, development of sessions, training, and program management.

Rights

© The Authors 2026.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original authors and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Data Availability

Article states: "Not applicable."

Original Publication Citation

Wallace, A. M., Krebsbach, C., Radway, J., & Clark, L. (2026). Contextualizing the ASPE standards of best practice: Reflecting on the past, present, and future of SP methodology. Advances in Simulation, 11(1), Article 54. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41077-026-00480-5

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