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Northern Ontario School of Medicine looking for a few good actors

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Sudbury -

If you can act and have some extra time on your hands, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) could use your help.

The school is looking to recruit 65 'patients' as part of its Standardized Patient program.

"They are mainly used in our first- and second-year clinical skills program," said coordinator Erica Dzuba. "We are teaching our medical students how to do things like proper interviews, so how to do an interview say about a stomach issue, leg pain even medical issues, as well. Standardized patients also just do physical exams so they act as a patient model -- or a warm body if you want to look at it that way."

It's a paid position and they're looking for roughly 40 people at the Sudbury campus and another 25 in Thunder Bay.

It's for anyone over the age of 18 and for all genders. Applicants who are black, Indigenous, a person of colour, bilingual and male are also being encouraged to apply.

"So students get to practise blood pressure, again listening to a heart, knowing how the heart sounds are, listening to breath sounds and the lungs and, for example, doing a musculoskeletal exam," said Dzuba.

A participant's personal medical information stays private. Standardized patients will follow a script and a specific set of symptoms.

Div Patel worked as a standardized patient while he was an undergraduate student at Laurentian University. It helped him follow his dream to pursue an education at NOSM himself as a medical student.

"If you're uncomfortable with playing a case, they accommodate to you with that aspect so you don't have to take on any case that you're not comfortable with," said Patel. "They are very open in that aspect of trying to make sure that you're aware with what you have to do."

Patel credits the program in helping him work on his communication skills.

"It really solidified my understanding of physicians and, you know, how they always have to be competent communicators so you're always applying the theory in-person and making sure you're communicating with patients/standardized patients," he said.

NOSM said this is about helping medical students with their education so they can help us, eventually, once they graduate.

For more information on how to apply, click here.

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