David Shaheen is a retired NASA finance manager who has volunteered as a “Standardized Patient”, an SP, since the charter class entered UCF’s medical school in 2009. He plays the role of the sick, the injured and even their families in the medical school’s Clinical Simulation and Training Center. He’s scripted with a specific scenario, from a routine checkup to a life-threatening diagnosis and acts out his medical issue helping students learn to do physical exams, take patient histories and, perhaps most importantly, communicate with clarity and compassion. His work is helping the College of Medicine educate the highly skilled and compassionate doctors of the future.