While Theatre graduate Laura Anne Harris (BFA 2007) is known for her creative work as a playwright, director and actor through solo shows like Pitch Blonde and The Homecoming, she also offers far more intimate performances in her ongoing role as a Simulated Patient and Sensitive Exam Teaching Associate for medical schools in both Canada and the US, where she now lives. By accurately simulating specific symptoms of medical situations like appendicitis, cancer, stroke recovery or bipolar psychosis, her experience as an actor continues to help train hundreds of medical professionals. We caught up with her recently to ask about this fascinating offshoot of professional acting.
How did you end up becoming a professional patient?
“I actually got into it through word-of-mouth: I was doing murder-mystery dinner theatre with a friend in Toronto who knew a company that was looking for new ‘patients.’ I needed a side gig while I was auditioning and acting, and it opened up a whole world for me. I’ve been doing it for about 14 years now, and right now it’s about 75 per cent of my acting work. I love doing it!”
How many different medical situations have you simulated?
“Hundreds! Anxiety, delirium, depression, lupus, mania, STIs, alcohol withdrawal, bipolar psychosis, heart conditions, skin conditions, suicidal ideation . . . any sort of ailment you can think of, and many very strange ones I don’t ever remember the names of. I’ve also worked with chiropractors and nurses for insurance companies and educational programs where we were acting as parents at PTA meetings or doing parent-teacher interviews. One school even had people doing simulations with a priest — which I didn’t get to do, but would have been really interesting!”
Harris in character as a patient
What does it take to be good at what you do? And how does it all actually work?
“You don’t have to be an actor to do this job, but it’s better if you are because you can create better simulations. It feels like film work in the way you perform; it’s actually some of the most grounded acting I’ve ever done.
There are many different ways to learn a case. We work from scripts or rehearsal videos — which can include prompts, background information or describe your position on the bed or in the room — and preparation can take as little as 30 minutes or as much as three hours. Timing varies from 15- to 45-minute in-person sessions to one-hour online sessions. Other times it’s a full day where I’m getting a series of simulated vaccines or IVs, doing heart or lung exams, checking for edema . . . it depends on the learning objectives. A lot of it is focused on improving diagnosis, medical skill sets and a doctor’s ability to communicate. Because this falls under the applied or educational theatre umbrella, you have to really understand improvisation.
You need to be comfortable with thinking on your feet and going with the flow because you’re working with learners who could do things that are not in the script. A good simulated patient tends to be quite normal, benign and grounded — but you also need to be able to access your emotions pretty freely, because there are times when you have to get really upset.”
What’s the hardest part of this kind of work? Conversely, what’s the most rewarding part?
“The biggest challenge is maintaining your character. If, like me, you’re doing a lot of different sims in one week, you can get your wires crossed, which can be very difficult. And it can really be draining to play the same patient all day, so you need to pace yourself.
The best part for me is the feedback sessions after the simulations, which I approach from an active-learning perspective: Did you have any goals coming in? What did you find particularly challenging? I want the learners to feel good about how they communicate with their patients. They need to realize they’re going to meet all types of people from all walks of life and must be prepared for that. There’s a lot of negative aspects of the healthcare profession, but we’re trying to make positive change — which is a wonderful thing. It can really be amazing and quite rewarding to be part of their learning.”
When you were in theatre school, did this ever come up as a professional option?
“Well, there’s that famous episode of Seinfeld where Kramer is a simulated patient in a wacky situation with a group of student doctors — but otherwise, no, I’d never really heard of it before.”
Has doing this changed the way you experience being an actual medical patient yourself?
“Absolutely! I always have a checklist of things I’m going to talk about with my doctor. I’ll be as prepared as I think they should be, which I don’t think most people do. I also teach gynecological exam techniques, so I’ve given notes about that in real time, too: I’ve had that experience where I’ve said, ‘Okay, I’m going to give you some notes about how that went . . .’ which is hilarious! For that work, we’re called Sensitive Exam Teaching Associates, and we get trained very specifically on this kind of trauma-informed and gender-affirming care.”
What’s next? What do you still want to accomplish?
“I’m currently working on two new scripts and co-writing a screenplay. In terms of this career, I hope to keep doing it: since simulated patients are all ages, there’s no generational gap. It’s a great working environment and I feel really blessed to be working in this field!”
This article originally appeared in UVic’s Torch alumni magazine