Theatre grad Laura Anne Harris practices patients

by | Jul 13, 2026 | Alumni, health, Theatre

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

Writing students mark fatal heat dome anniversary

by | Jun 29, 2026 | climate, donor, Faculty, health, Undergraduate, Writing

To mark the fifth anniversary of BC’s fatal heat dome in 2021, a group of UVic Writing students trained to take climate-survivor testimonials are now seeing their work run in the online news outlet The Tyee in a new five-part series with created in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project. 
“Some of what they share can be difficult to read. But the survivors want you to know what happened to them for a reason,” says CDP founder and Writing professor Sean Holman. “So we can be closer together. So we can feel less alone. So you know what to do when one of the worst days of your life happens, without warning.”

The human cost of BC’s heat dome was catastrophic: over 600 people died between June 25 and July 1 2021, making it the deadliest weather disaster in Canadian history. Over 100 all-time heat records were shattered as temperatures across the province soared 20° above typical summertime averages in a brutal reminder of how warm our world is becoming.

The Tyee series offers the stories of five heat-dome survivors, as told in their own words:

  • a Surrey mother whose newborn was struggling, and so was her ailing cat
  • a Vancouver homeowner who had to find a new home when her condo turned into a greenhouse
  • a Lower Mainland firefighter who answered emergency calls as extreme heat buckled the province’s health-care system
  • a retired school principal who was forced to evacuate when that heat turned to flame in Lytton
  • and a Kamloops councillor who could do little but watch as fire scorched one of the city’s outer neighbourhoods.
“These stories aren’t just an account of the harm caused by an environment we have harmed and are still harming,” says Holman, explaining how the CDP’s climate-survivor testimonies differ from traditional news stories. “They are early warning systems and emergency preparedness plans. Because the survivors of past climate disasters carry with them knowledge and wisdom needed to help us confront the extreme events that have now become seasonal. Reading their testimonies now isn’t just about memorialization. It’s about preparation. An opportunity to change what will happen today and tomorrow.”
The Climate Disaster Project was established in 2022 by Sean Holman — UVic’s donor-funded Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental & Climate Journalism — and has since grown into an award-winning international teaching newsroom with partners in multiple countries around the world, tackling projects ranging from journalism and documentaries to a theatrical play, museum exhibit and a pending literary anthology. It also gives our students the chance to see their work appear in professional media like The Guardian UK & The Tyee, among many others.

Music student launches Canadian Doctors Orchestra

by | Jun 25, 2026 | Alumni, Faculty, health, School of Music

The newly formed Canadian Doctors Orchestra, a non-profit symphony orchestra founded by UBC and UVic students, will make its debut in Victoria this December, showcasing healthcare professionals bridging medicine and musical performance.

Founded by UBC student Andrew Loe, a longtime classical viola player,  the emerging national ensemble — a first in Canada — is holding video auditions for musicians until July 1: healthcare professionals are invited to submit digital auditions on their website. The  project-based ensemble is open to any healthcare professionals, including (but not limited to) physicians, residents, nurses and medical students from across Canada.

Currently a student in UBC’s Island Medical Program, which is based at UVic, Loe is also taking classes in our School of Music. “When I got into medical school, I was excited to meet people who were also pursuing a dual music and medicine path,” he says. “I want to create a space where people with both passions can give back to their community and indulge their love for music.”

The link between music and wellness is well-founded, as proven by countless music therapy programs, but Loe also hopes the new orchestra will promote physician wellness, as well as encourage national healthcare collaboration.

Led by acclaimed composer, conductor and School of Music professor Ajtony Csaba, the ensemble will bring together over 60 medical students, physicians and healthcare professionals from across Canada for an intensive weekend of rehearsals on December 18 and 19, followed by a matinee performance on December 20 at UVic’s Farquhar Auditorium. Proceeds from the concert will be donated directly to Canadian health initiatives.

It was during Loe’s UVic music studies that his viola professor, Joanna Hood, introduced him to the World Doctor’s Orchestra, which features 100 physicians from several countries who perform series of charity concerts after several days of intensive rehearsals. Founded in 2008, the WDO began with 60 physician musicians from 12 countries and now boasts membership by 2,000-plus doctors from 60 countries; they’ve since performed 48 concerts globally, and raised more than 2 million Euros.

“When I did my undergrad, I did a minor in music,” Loe tells the music blog Ludwig Van Toronto, noting that he’s still taking UVic music classes during his medical training. He says Hood is “super supportive” of both his combined studies and this new initiative. “She’s a great mentor and teacher.”

Hood also connected Loe with other musical doctors, including violinist and Victoria Symphony concertmaster Terry Tam, a graduate of the Glenn Gould School and an ER physician with Saanich Peninsula Hospital.

Another notable School of Music alumni who fuses her performance and health care practices is Victoria-based Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk — best known as “Street Doctor Jill” for her Street Medicine 101 social media videos — who graduated with a Bachelor of Music in violin performance before going on to earn her medical degree.

Loe says he already has over 150 people interested in joining but is eager to hear from more. “[Auditions are] by video, but if people only have audio recordings, or group recordings [that’s okay too]. It’s for us to get a sense of where the collective orchestra is at.”

Naming A Crisis uses art to address overdose deaths

by | Apr 14, 2026 | Alumni, Events, Faculty, Graduate, health, Visual Arts

Organizers Stephanie Harrington (left) & Amanda Farrell-Low in front of Laura Dutton’s installation

Tuesday April 14 marked 10 years since BC declared the overdose crisis a public health emergency, and more than 18,000 people have died from toxic drugs: a decade on, nearly five people a day are dying. While that scale of loss is hard to comprehend, the new multimedia arts installation Naming A Crisis has been created to show the magnitude of this crisis . . . one name at a time.
Conceived of by Writing MFA alum Stephanie Harrington, Visual Arts instructor and alumna Laura Dutton and Amanda Farrell-Low (communications officer for UVic’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research), Naming A Crisis honours lives lost to toxic drugs. “We wanted to honour these individuals but also convey the scale of loss at the same time, because it’s astronomical,” Farrell-Low said in this Victoria News article.
Presented by the Victoria Arts Council and running through April 26 on the lower floor of downtown’s Bay Centre, one of the most powerful visual highlights of Naming A Crisis is Dutton’s three-channel audio/video installation, which features the names and photos of people lost to drug-related harms — including family members for both Harrington and Farrell-Low. There will also be a series of community events throughout the exhibit, including art, photography, spoken word, participatory works, speaking events, workshops and more.
 
“I want people to walk away with a better understanding of the toll of this crisis and the human cost of it,” Harrington told Victoria News. “I want them to understand that there’s a lot of people doing work to change what’s happening and that there are solutions out there. There just isn’t the political will or courage to implement those solutions.”
 
You can also hear Stephanie and Amanda speak on CBC Radio’s On The Island.
 
See the full events list here.

The research behind the curtain of In My Day

by | Mar 31, 2026 | Events, health, Research, Theatre

By focusing on BC’s historical HIV/AIDS crisis, the new UVic production In My Day highlighted collaboration between researchers, community and performance-makers

Neon lights, club beats, a generation on the edge of disaster: when UVic’s Phoenix Theatre staged the moving and dynamic verbatim play In My Day in March 2026, it brought an essential chapter of Canadian history to life on the stage.

In My Day was both inspired by and based on the UVic oral-history research project “HIV In My Day”, which was supported by the School of Public Health & Social Policy, funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council and now housed in the UVic Libraries Special Collections & University Archives. Between 2017 and 2020, “HIV In My Day” collected sound and video interviews with long-term HIV survivors and their caregivers about their experiences living through the first 15 years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Vancouver.

The original “HIV In My Day” archive was established by Nathan Lachowsky, then a professor with UVic’s School of Public Health and Social Policy and now Dean of UNBC’s Faculty of Human & Health Sciences, but the resulting play In My Day was written by Victoria playwright Rick Waines and guest directed by former Belfry Theatre artistic director Roy Surette. Nearly 100 authentic voices drawn from the original archival material were brought to life by a cast of 19 student actors, using themes of joy, care and connection to tell the story of life in the queer community during the early days of the epidemic.

“What does performance do to both archival and oral histories, in terms of activating that material?” asks Department of Theatre professor Sasha Kovacs, whose own SSHRC funding via the Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance partnership also supported this production. “And what does it mean for a new generation of students to understand this particular moment in history, to hear these stories from those bodies and these perspectives?”

Set designer Claudia Fraser’s research brought BC’s turbulent AIDS history to life (photo: Dean Kalyan)

Life becomes art through research

A Victoria playwright whose work uses autofiction and verbatim material to discuss his experiences living with HIV and the historical impacts HIV has on communities, Waines is intimately involved with this story. A hemophiliac who was diagnosed with HIV at just 21 in the 1980s, he was both one of the interviews for, and transcriber of, the original oral-history project; now, he uses the tools of narrative theatre to amplify his lived experience and challenge ongoing stigmas.

“This is a piece of memorial art,” he says. “It’s a powerful way of telling the stories of people who are no longer with us — it’s a naming, like, ‘Here we are, here are our stories.’ You’re going to get to know some of the folks through the memories of those of us who survived.”

As a play, In My Day was first workshopped in 2021 in the Belfry Theatre’s SPARK festival, then later performed in 2023 by Vancouver’s ZeeZee Theatre at the Cultch. The Phoenix production offers a significant reworking of the material to fit the student cast — “including a guy named Rick, who’s transcribing these interviews poorly and slowly,” laughs Waines.

Part of Avery Kester’s lobby display

In all iterations of the play to date, Waines has worked with young casts lacking firsthand experience of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, so educating them — as well as audiences — is a priority. “Not just the dates, names and drugs, but the feeling [of having HIV/AIDS] in their bodies,” he says. “Young queer folk don’t always understand or know the genealogy of their history . . . so when a young queer couple in the audience stands up at a talk-back session and says what the show meant to him or her, that’s enough for me.”

“It’s been fantastic having Rick here throughout the whole rehearsal period,” notes Kovacs. “Being able to share first-hand memories of these times has been invaluable — and the student playing the character ‘Rick’ [Elliot Baskin Smith] has been regularly conversing with him, which has been a fun part of the process.”

In fact, the two Ricks — Waines and Baskin Smith — both did a live interview with CBC Radio about their experiences working on this play.

Projection designer Molly Somers captured Vancouver’s queer hotspots (photo: Dean Kalyan)

Theatre with an ongoing impact

Kovacs believes the impact of In My Day goes well beyond the Theatre department and into the broader community: by dramatizing the oral history archive, the play provides an opportunity for students to understand how their work can serve larger goals and priorities — which is one of the goals of any research-informed creation project, like the Climate Disaster Project’s verbatim  survivor play Eyes of the Beast, presented at the Phoenix in 2024. “This is an opportunity to think more about producing this kind of work,” says Kovacs.

For In My Day, the student cast all had access to the original interviews — both written transcripts and videos — which Kovacs describes as “a key part of the process.” She also ensured that the show’s student design team spent time in the Museum of Vancouver’s gay and lesbian archives to properly capture the period. In this work, the students also learned about the historical intersections of performance and health activisms across more locally situated 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

“This production not only catalyzes all that work but is also a way of encouraging students to engage with raw archival material. I sometimes think we take for granted how progressive the work was in these communities at that time . . . the way they were talking about gender and sexuality was really groundbreaking.”

Costume designer Helga Woolsey recreated the queer looks of the 1980s (photo: Dean Kalyan)

Collaborating on authentic history

Kovacs feels interdisciplinary projects like In My Day offer an ideal opportunity to educate students about the importance of collaboration between researchers and performance-makers. “This is all about engaging community with public health history: how do we engage those conversations into artistic practice?” she asks. “But with this production, I’m also interested in how we care for the health of the performers lifting this powerful, emotional and authentic work — that’s something we need to talk about more in the work we do as theater artists. While we’re telling stories about health, we also need to keep our creative team healthy and safe.”

With that in mind, In My Day honours not only those who were lost but the resilient communities who continue to care for one another and shape our collective future. During the play’s run, Phoenix Theatre also hosted an HIV community day, supported by UVic’s Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health, and presented an engaging visual timeline (by local artist Peggy Frank), art pieces from HIV positive community members and an exhibit in the lobby (created by Applied Theatre MA student Avery Kester, with guidance from Kovacs) which offered further insight into the interviews and archival materials that inspired the play and its production.

A close-up of Peggy Frank’s timeline

“Most plays and shows about HIV/AIDS focus on the American or British experience, so In My Day also gives us an opportunity to reflect on a more localized circumstance,” concludes Kovacs. “What are the stories being told within our local community, being created by local theatre companies? Who’s devoted to fostering the voices of folks who actually live here? This is a big moment for the Phoenix to produce a Canadian story by a Canadian playwright, while also advancing the faculty’s strategic priority to address the intersections of arts and health.”

—John Threlfall, with files from Claudia Phillips