By Kenny Chee

MS CAROLYN Ho, 27, might not be a star in the next ER or Healing Hands medical drama series.

But about once a month, the administration executive, who has no prior acting experience, acts as a patient in training sessions for students from the Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Graduate Medical School.

Like any actor, Ms Ho has a script that tells her what ailments her character suffers from, the personality she should portray and her character's family and social background.

She even has to look the part.

"I once played a drug addict," she said. "So I had to wear shabby clothes and put on make-up to make me look tired."

Ordinary Singaporeans are in demand to act as patients, like Ms Ho, by the Duke-NUS school and NUS' Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

The Duke-NUS school currently has 66 such actors, while the NUS medical school has 90.

They want more such actors to train the growing number of medical students. The NUS medical school's intake is expected to grow from last year's 260 to 300 by 2011. The Duke-NUS school has 56 students this year, double its 2007 intake.

The NUS medical school hopes to hire more "patient actors" as it plans to organise more training sessions.

"This will help further enhance our students' communication skills with patients. The increase in the number of training sessions will also help cater to our increased medical intake," said Associate Professor Koh Dow Rhoon, the school's vice-dean for education.

Professor Robert Kamei, vice-dean for education at the Duke-NUS school, said that it hopes to get more actors in their 20s and 30s as "having a larger pool of candidates will be beneficial for us to tap on, especially if we need to play a case from that particular age group".

Its pool of actors comprises mainly students, retirees and a small group of young executives.

Such simulated doctor-patient sessions provide training for future doctors in clinical and communication skills in a controlled environment before working with real patients, said Prof Kamei.

The sessions also help lecturers assess students' skills, he said.

The NUS medical school has had this programme since 2002, while the Duke-NUS school implemented it when it opened in 2007.

In the United States and Canada, getting ordinary people to act as patients with specific medical problems to train medical students has been around since the mid-1970s.

The patient actors here are paid $12 to $15 an hour but, for many of them, money is not the main reason they act.

A patient actor with Duke-NUS, Nanyang Polytechnic student Jonathan Boo, 20, said: "I decided to sign up as I'll be able to help train the future doctors of Singapore."

kennyc@sph.com.sg

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