This is the VOA Special English Health Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish
Some people act
sick to get out of work. Others act sick to get work. For medical actors like
Ted Bell, the stage is an examination room with a future doctor, nurse or other
health care professional. On a recent day, he was playing a fifty-five-year-old
patient with stomach pains that began three months ago. He was describing the
problem to a nursing student at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
Ted Bell was playing a schoolteacher. But in a way he really does teach. He
helps future doctors, nurses and other health care professionals learn to work
with patients. In real life, Mr. Bell is a retired civil engineer. He now works
as what is known as a "standardized patient." He stays busy working as one of
about seven hundred standardized patients in the Baltimore-Washington area. Pay
starts at seventeen dollars an hour. It can go as high as thirty-five dollars an
hour depending on the project. Becoming a standardized patient does not require
medical knowledge. The schools provide the training. Nor does it require acting
experience. In fact, standardized patient Tom Wyatt is a professional actor --
yet he does not even think of his work with the students as acting. He says, "I
use some of the acting skills, but honestly when its going well, I'm not really
acting, I am reacting. I'm listening to them and reacting naturally and honestly
to what they're saying to me and what they're giving me." Standardized patients
spend hours training for each of their "performances." They have to remember the
medical history of the person they are playing and be able to answer questions
as if they were really sick. Tom Wyatt says remembering all the patients he has
to play and their conditions can be difficult. "Especially when I do, you know,
sometimes nine or ten cases in a week at three different hospitals, so they're
all completely different." After each session the standardized patients talk to
the students to discuss their performance -- that is, the performance of the
student. For instance, he recently told one student nurse practitioner, "The
things that really stood out for me: your manner was extremely professional. And
you were in command at all times. You kind of took charge of the room." The
students say they like working with medical actors. And the actors enjoy it,
too. Ted Bell says the students find the experience very helpful, and that makes
him feel good. For VOA Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. Get more news and
learn English at voaspecialenglish.com.
(Adapted from a radio program
broadcast 22Feb2012)
원문출처 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FTlZaf-9pU&feature=youtube_gdata
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