to ask how to become a Medical Actor

[CrimsonSilk]

You know, one of those people that medical students practise their communication skills on.

[CrimsonSilk]

In the UK, by the way.

[londonrach]

Don't know about medicine but I trained in allied medical profession. The patients they used for our exams came from one of our clinics we used. They won't paid apart from biscuits and cups of teas and were amazingly knowledge about their medical diseases and interested in talking to students. They were carefully selected. When someone new came in with an interesting medical condition the lectures asked them. I was lucky enough to have one of my new patients selected. However most had been doing the rounds of exams etc for ages. Maybe try a medical school, ring up and ask. Good luck.

[Mrsmorton]

Local drama groups came to our hospital. I'm not sure you'll find many students who enjoyed the role playing.

For exams we had patients as londonrach said. They were lovely, they'd tell you what was wrong with them and sit and chat for a bit before you went into the viva

[MoominKoalaAndMiniMoom]

We do it as part of our uni course. Its a branch of corporate drama. See if you can find corporate drama companies locally.

I'm roleplaying in a psychiatric training day next month :)

It can be voluntary but when you get paid, it can be a lot!

[MoominKoalaAndMiniMoom]

We do it as part of our uni course. Its a branch of corporate drama. See if you can find corporate drama companies locally.

I'm roleplaying in a psychiatric training day next month :)

It can be voluntary but when you get paid, it can be a lot!

[MrsWinnibago]

Some of my friends do it. They're all trained and experienced actors. RADA, Guildhall, etc....they've worked on TV and in Films. I don't think it's something you can just "do".

[cherrytree63]

At the hospital I work in we have "expert" patients on some of our mandatory training days. They are people who have actually been inpatients for surgery or other problems.
We practice caring for our bed bound patients, things like bed baths, linen changing, dressing etc and we get feedback on our technique, empathy and communication skills.

[Upsydaisymustdie]

My husband used to do this - agree with PP, it was because he was an "interesting patient", and there was no pay or anything involved. He was asked by his consultant I think, although I have also seen Nurse Practitioners recruit patients who they think would be good.

[TalcumPowder]

My dad and FIL do this. My friend is the manager of the university medical faculty in the city where I grew up, and asked if they were interested as they needed some older people involved, as most recruits were students. No pay, but possibly a sandwich lunch. They both rather enjoy it, and get highly involved in the process.

Though I know in other places I know of they just use medical students. And it sounds from other people on the thread as if such things work differently elsewhere ie. sometimes patients with specific medical conditions are brought in, where dad and FIL are healthy and just given sheets listing their symptoms, which could indicate anything from heart disease to yaws.

[MyrnaLoy]

I have a friend who is a full time medical actor. She is fully trained and went to stage school before getting a degree in drama. She is employed through an agency that specialises in providing actors for medical training.

She says it's a really interesting job - she covers all sorts of work, but a lot of it is at advanced level for specialist staff.

[LikeTheShoes]

If you're in the Liverpool area send me a PM and I can put you in contact with the person who arranges it. When I did it (before 2007) I got paid £100 per day. It was very boring.

[DidoTheDodo]

My son did this for some years and along with other small acting jobs managed to support himself. He rather enjoyed it.

[magpiegin]

The medical actors and expert patients are different. The actors are well paid and are professional actors. The expert patients tends to be a voluntary thing.

The courses I have been on with the medical actors have been amazing but bloody hard work because they are so good.

[Bumply]

DS2 (11 at the time) was used as an expert patient for his asthma/coeliac last time we were in hospital. He quite enjoyed it, but I found it quite scary when the 'teaching' doctor was talking through worst case scenarios of long term undiagnosed asthma with the students. I think she forgot we were there at that point.

[Nicola19]

Psychiatry membership exams (along with probably other specialties), are really big on OSCEs (objective structured clinical examinations). It is a postgraduate exam and these exams are the type most likely to use medical actors rather than real patients. Perhaps you could contact postgraduate offices of your local teaching hospital as a first port of call.

[HippityHoppityLaLaLa]

A fully trained actor friend earned most of his income for several years doing this. Depending on circumstances, ie whether it was an exam or whether the students were simply in training at that point, he was sometimes given a set of symptoms in advance, other times he had to improvise completely. Some areas stopped using trained actors and put ads in the papers asking for volunteers to save money.

'Interesting patients' with some unusual condition / symptoms is something else entirely: real people with a real medical condition.

[scottishmummy]

They just recruit from agent,there no special way in.other than being actor

[scottishmummy]

Its usually for trained staff, for royal college of psychiatrists exams