I am a standardized patient. So that's kind of one of my-
Wait. Tell me what a, I don't know,
I do not know what a standardized patient is.
Yeah. So a standardized patient is a person,
typically an actor that is paid to portray patients
with various illnesses for medical schools.
Whoa.
Wait a minute. Yeah.
Your job is to go into a medical school
and present symptoms, and then they have to try and guess
what it is and that way they can practice diagnosing.
Correct. Exactly. So we're training the future doctors
of America, essentially.
Wait a minute. This is, I didn't, first of all,
I didn't know this existed. Second, this is fascinating
to me. Yeah.
Because you have to have this incredible,
first of all, abilities as an actor, but also you need to
really know the disease you're pretending to have.
Yeah, yeah. We get trained on it.
Some of the trainings are really hardcore
and some are more like, you do this thing, do it.
So it just depends on--
Are you allowed, like on Halloween or April fools to go in
with symptoms that you have like an alien in your belly?
Like a xenomorph or something?
(laughs) I have an alien for my belly, so I could do that.
But-- What?
For my Halloween costume, I actually did, this year
I put an alien in my shirt.
That's a different story, but. (laughs)
But I have, this is absolutely stunning.
You are trained to go in to a medical school.
And you have to really commit to having this illness.
And you have to know the- Oh yeah.
So I'm guessing you go in for some mild things and, say,
pretty much present the symptoms of eczema,
but you also go in and you have like a brain tumor.
Is that right?
Yeah. Yeah. I've done all of the above.
You know, sometimes we put on moulage
to present like cellulitis.
So your foot is all swollen and red.
Oh, you do prosthetics as well.
Oh my god. We have, yeah.
I've had fake wounds.
This is fantastic. I mean-- Yeah.
This is, I'm fascinated by this.
And so you go in, you really commit.
Do you ever do anything really obvious, like put an arrow,
like a fake arrow through your head?
(laughs)
And say, "I'm getting these, I was in an archery range
and now I'm having pain in my head," just sort of,
you know, just sort of give them an easy pass one day?
"I've got this pain in my head."
"Uh, it might be the arrow."
"Oh, A-pluses for everybody."
Boom, boom, boom. You get an A-plus. You get an A-plus.
Yeah.
We, depending on the year of the student,
we make them easier or harder. So, you know, if it's a
student's first encounter with a standardized patient,
we're gonna give them an easier time.
So it might be something like, you know, your affect is like
a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale and you're just like,
"Oh, my head hurts so bad," or something like that.
Right. So they can immediately go
to Oh, okay, we're going to go in this ...
But sometimes it's on the lighter end and it's more nuanced.
Well, how far do they take it?
What I'm saying is, let's say you're presenting
really bad symptoms. Do they, do you ever take it
to the point where they have to give you bad news?
Oh yes. Yes. We do a lot of those.
Oh.
In fact, those are some of the best ones to do
because they're pure acting.
It's not like, Ow, my stomach hurts. It's more of,
you know, "We brought you in here today
to tell you that you have cancer."
Oh. Jesus.
Yeah. Or like even heavier stuff sometimes.
So then they have to deal with--
What's heavier than that?
You're right. What is heavier than that? Not much.
It could be the cancer or death of a loved one
or something like that. But--
Ah. Jeez.
the ones that we do the most are the,
they call them breaking bad news.
And that's where they, yeah, they bring you in
and we're trained to portray a certain type of emotion
when they tell us this.
So, I'm ... Man, this just blows me away.
So you, they tell you ...
Is your name Katie in these scenarios
or do you use a different name?
I typically use a different name.
Because it can be like a case name.
So like I'm playing like, Colleen Cumberland.
Right. Sure. It seems to me like your,
yeah, your name is-- A countess? (laughs)
I love that name is Katie Culligan but you will only play
a Colleen Culligan.
The thing is they've gotta be Irish.
They've gotta be Irish. (laughs)
And the diagnosis is always the same.
You had way too much to drink as a child.
(laughs)
So my question is, okay, you really commit as an actor then
to them telling you. Me saying, "Hey, Colleen,
we have really bad news for you.
This is a kind of cancer that spreads quickly,
and you've probably got six weeks." And do you cry?
Do you get-- Yeah.
Wow. This is to help them train
to deal with this situation.
Right. Yeah. So we're often trained
to be as authentic as possible.
So if the student isn't very good
at delivering the bad news, we might react a different way
than if they were fantastic at it.
So I find that on those days that I have to portray
those cases, these are 90-minute encounters
with the students, where it's a lot of time and energy
and emotion. And I will absolutely get to the point
of tears, sobbing. Sometimes people yell, scream.
It just depends on what they're feeling that day, and--
Whoa. I didn't know this existed.
I'm ... It makes perfect sense that it does,
but this is mind-blowing.