Let’s say you’re a hardworking doctor, surgeon, PA-C, or midwife. After working anywhere from 2 months to 30 years you get feedback saying that your ‘bed side manner’ needs some work. Maybe you have a hard time connecting with your patients, maybe you’re too soft spoken, or perhaps you have a hard time with empathy. If this is the case, you will be sent away to a full day workshop where you will learn the principals of patient communication. You will be able to practice the skills and the empathy it takes to work with very sick people through facilitated role playing using actors as pseudo-patients you might have. I was one of those actors. It was the most fascinating day I’ve had in quite a while.

I played everything from an 80 year old woman whose doctor of 30 years had retired (”Are you my new doctor? You look young enough to be my granddaughter!”) to a terrified 47 year old woman in the emergency room with congestive heart failure, (”My kids! What about my 3 kids?”) In each scenario the facilitator was giving me various hand gestures (’amp it up’ or ’start talking less’), particular attention was paid to body language, and the tone of of voice. We were in small groups of six and each medical practitioner practiced their toughest cases in front of the group for supportive feedback.

I learned that being in the medical practice is very similar to customer service–only instead of people freaking out over their latte or their purple sweater it’s their kidneys. When emotions run high a doctor has to learn how to cool it, which is much, much harder then we imagine. I had always assumed that doctors came empathetic, but many of them are so scientific and so clinical that it would appear they don’t have an empathetic bone in their body. “We have to get it done, chop chop,” one vascular surgeon vented to the rest of the room. She was a tiny woman of epic anger, the type of doctor who answered her cell phone during the session and made it clear that it was usually the patient’s fault (it should be noted that she was a rarity). It’s been her experience that all people want is unnecessary surgery, they look up their symptoms on WebMD and swear that they know what’s best for them. Out of the entire day, this surgeon was the only one who could not convince my character that surgery wasn’t an option. The more she pushed her agenda on me, the more anxiety I exhibited and the less was accomplished (fascinating).

But let’s not focus on the negative–that was highly discouraged during this workshop. An older gentlemen who had a private practice of 30 years is now working in the emergency room. While I step to receive instructions from the facilitator, he carefully makes an emergency room bed out of chairs for me to lie on. As our role-playing begins he looms over me, all handshakes and pleasantries as I shrink further and further into my ‘bed.’ It doesn’t take much for me to get into character, I’ve had plenty of experience being a patient, a surgery-recipient, a bit of a hysterical case myself. I find myself tearing up as the old doctor changes his tactic, kneels down besides me and takes my hand. The tearing up is so bad that the facilitator actually asks me if I’m ok. “I’m ACTING,” I say in a grand sweeping voice, straight out of Saturday Night Live.

We are fed lunch and the other actors and I confer. One of them played a morbidly obese man demanding surgery, another played a woman who was cranky over her pregnancy. We transition into playing the most difficult patients in our small groups. The most beautiful, tattooed, young man with scrubs on and a PA-C (Physician Assistant-Certified) in Neurosurgery tag around his neck confesses that his ‘hot button’ is when patients ask to see a ‘real doctor.’ Despite his years of experience, they have to hear it from an MD. I play a woman who has just heard I have a small, non-threatening tumor in my brain but that the doctor is unable to see me until Monday. I freak out at the sweetie-pie in scrubs, demanding to a see doctor, swearing that I have cancer and that no one is taking me seriously. I do such a good job, that the PA-C breaks character and implores the facilitator for help. “You were so easy with Mindy,” he says, gesturing to the quiet, Asian, nephrologist. She and I had just role-played a scenario where I would not accept the fact that my father’s organs were shutting down one by one and that he was dying. Instead I wanted her to approve him for dialysis. Despite my attempt to be as one-track as possible her calm nature, consistent vocal tone, and empathetic statements (”I know this must be very hard for you”) made my character finally calm down and even start crying a little bit.

“We all know you have wonderful vocal tone,” the facilitator tells the hottie physician attendant, “give it more pauses and more empathetic statements.” The PA-C assures my character that nothing will happen to me over the weekend, that he will personally assure a doctor’s appointment the following Monday, and that he understands that this must be frightening for me. I went from being a crazy character from a soap opera (”Is there a doctor in the house?!”) to a puddle on the floor. I (probably unprofessionally) tell this guy later on the elevator ride down that I would be honored to have any of his colleagues as my doctor. Turns out he is incredibly shy and I realize I should have shut my yap and stayed in character instead.

I found the day to be an amazing insight to the great lengths doctors go to build the trust factor. Simply amazing.