Researcher Estella Geraghty has identified several key determinants for patient-visit length. These included individual style and practice volume, whether a physician practiced within a health maintenance organization or whether the doctor had any nonprofessional experience with depression. The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, involved 298 primary care visits by 18 standardized patients to physicians at medical offices in California and New York. Standardized patients are healthy persons trained to portray the personal history, physical symptoms, emotional characteristics and everyday concerns of an actual patient.