Patient

This film is part fiction, part observation, part improvisation. I worked with professional Standardized Patients (SPs), medical actors who regularly perform as a variety of patients for medical students so the students can practice bedside manner and empathy. After observing and researching at a few facilities, I settled on the University of Wisconsin Health Sciences Learning Center. All of the SPs in this film work there as SPs in real life. All of the medical students in this film also work there as SPs. For the most part, they are doing their job as they always do, except I wrote the cases and patient character descriptions and there were film cameras in the room. The film is a compressed "day in the life of an SP". I built a light narrative that runs throughout the day, one that follows Gayle the SP (Ronna Trapanese) and Melanie the Med Student (Rainy Armstrong). Simply put, they're both just "having one of those days" in which their hearts are on their sleeves or a panic attack is just one thought away. The layers run deep, plot and performance are confused, and everyone wears multiple hats in a stressful, but safe environment.