(This post was first published in January 2014.)
Lying to your doctor is encouraged in one situation: when your doctor is a student and you're an actor asked to portray a certain condition. My friend Amy Savage does this for work. In between fake symptom bouts, I asked her to write a guest post sharing what she's learned from being poked for practice.
Have you ever been asked to “please dislocate your left breast,” or if you “have noticed any hairs growing in places you normally wouldn’t have hairs"? Or maybe someone told you to “have a nice day” after your spouse just passed away or you’d received a cancer diagnosis. Not only do I hear things like this from time to time at my job, but I have grown to expect them. I have been working for several months as a so-called standardized patient. The local medical school runs ...
