Oh, no! I'm the first patient these 23 med students have ever examined

Slate Magazine: By Emily Yoffe

Sometimes it was hard for me not to laugh. Dr. A was so sweetly flustered that in a perfect Chaplinesque slapstick, he would drop his reflex hammer on the floor, bend to pick it up, and then discover that his pen had fallen out of his white coat. Dr. N wasted the first eight minutes of the exam trying repeatedly to get a blood pressure reading. The panic in his eyes seemed to say, 'She appears to be alive, yet she has no vital signs.' He finally solved the dilemma when he realized he was listening to my arm with the wrong side of the stethoscope. (My blood pressure readings, which require technical skills on the part of the doctor, varied from 87/60 to 125/90.)...

After every three exams, standardized patients take a break in a private lounge. There were about 20 of us divided into two groups. My group was undergoing the physicals, while a group of older SPs were pretending to have hurt themselves in a fall. Almost all my fellow patients were professional actors who supplement their income by appearing in a repertory circuit at the medical schools of Georgetown, George Washington, and the military's Uniformed Services University. I envied that some really got to exercise their acting chops. One told me she recently portrayed a depressed alcoholic with irritable bowel syndrome who wasn't even supposed to know she was depressed and alcoholic—the medical student was supposed to figure that out. ...

Some tried making doctorly conversation. "Have you ever had a physical before?" one asked. I nodded yes, but wanted to add, "Lately, I get one about every half hour."