Becoming an actor is not all glamour and glitz till you make it big. And even then, one needs to become an influencer, marketeer, and role model, all at once. But not all acting gigs will land aspiring actors on the big screen; some may find themselves playing a fake patient for very real doctors.
As Hollywood gigs dry up, many actors are becoming ‘standardised patients’ (SP), reported Variety. Sounds familiar? It is similar to when students participate in paid research experiments to earn a quick buck.
What are standardised patients?
Explained simply, standardised patients are part of a simulation used to train and evaluate future doctors. A common practice across medical schools and hospitals, standardised patients are used to measure a potential professional’s communication skills, and it all happens in nearly real circumstances.
Franny Bavaro, a coordinator of the SP program, which manages these standardised patients, revealed that across 40 patients, 30 of them are professional actors, reported Variety. This program exposes the medical professionals to complicated and sensitive medical scenarios, which becomes a crucial part of their training.
According to research published in the National Library of Medicine, standardised patients are “now the gold standard for measuring the competence of physicians and other health professionals, and the quality of their practice.”
The entertainment side-hustle
As the entertainment industry squeezes up and jobs run thin, actors, especially from Broadway, are turning to hospitals as an innovative side-hustle. With the seasonal nature of the job, stage actors are usually on Broadway for four years, and then unemployed for the next seven months, explained Tom Souhrada, a 35-year stage veteran.
The jobs offered under the SP Program usually pay $25-30 per hour in New York, which ranks higher than many entry-level jobs in retail, hospitality, and personal care services. Some pop-culture enthusiasts may recognise this practice from ‘Sienfield’, but it may not have captured the entire essence, but the representation of this odd job is rather rare in mainstream media.
The patients usually receive a brief of their personal history and health information before each simulation. While their ‘role’ is not scripted, they improvise, make acting choices, and try to keep their performance ‘standardised’, for an objective evaluation of the situation. However, some patients may even need weeks of training and research, for example, playing a patient with schizophrenia. They sometimes even require a hair and makeup team to mimic trauma and even deliver negative news to potential patients – they all make up for a better-trained medical practitioner.