Leslie Jamison's Essay 'The Empathy Exams'

In the essay “The Empathy Exams” the author, Leslie Jamison, plays the role of a Medical Actor to help in the learning process for medical students. As a medical actor, her main job is to pretend that she is a sick patient. She must be a Standardized Patient, meaning she must pretend to have the mentality and all symptoms of the patient she is play-acting to be. The students are supposed to go along with the acting and ask the “sick patient” anything from health related questions to person life questions. Throughout the essay the narrator undertakings the characters Stephanie Phillips, a twenty- three women who has been experiencing seizures for the past two years because of grief of her brother’s death, and Leslie Jamison, a twenty-five year …show more content…
The narrator gets the reader into a mood to get him or her uncomfortable. Once the reader is out of his or her comfort zone, he or she can then feel challenged to feel a certain way. While in a comfort zone, people only do and feel what they already know. Stepping out of that will create a bigger picture and create more interest to the story. In “The Empathy Exams” the Medical actors have a very detailed scripts to make the students feel as if they were in a real situation. Once they get into the mood they can express some sort of empathy. Some students can express it better than others the same way as some readers will express it better than other. Each individual is different and has experienced different situations throughout their life. Depending on the kind of person they are will dictate what kind of emotions they can express. Obviously, the two stories that the narrator explains are very infrequent situations. Therefore it is difficult for an outside party to actually emotionally connect with the character. By creating a particular tone, the author helps the reader put him or herself in the situation. The audience can just imagine it in their head and in a way pretend as though it is happening in their own