Reseach Experiments and Standardized Patients

I allow myself to become a guinea pig for comedy (and science). Plus recs for Tommy Orange, Mary Beth Barone's new comedy special, and Michelle Alexander on MLK's guide to hope in despairing times.

As a person who is always looking for a good story and a quirky experience, I’m very open to signing up for things. If there’s a flyer stapled to a telephone pole near my house advertising a weird art show, I’m probably going to attend. You have an extra ticket to a concert by an orchestra of kazoos? I will be there! You’re looking for study subjects for your offbeat medical research project? I’m your guy.

Between that tendency and the fact that I’ve hosted comedy shows interviewing scientists for the past decade, I’ve come to be familiar with all sorts of strange corners of the research world. I tried (unsuccessfully) to grow a packet of hybrid tomatillo seeds that I got for free from a biology department. I played (and lost) a betting game against econ grad students in exchange for a gift card.

And, most recently, I was part of a swim research study that was testing out the performance benefits of various high-end wetsuits. Unfortunately for the scientists, while I love to swim, I am so not an athlete that they could barely even set a baseline to compare against while I struggled to swim in their data-measuring treadmill pool. They also told me to “swim 6x25 to warmup” and I stared at them completely blankly because those numbers meant nothing to me. This is despite swimming multiple times a week for years now. I may not have helped with their wetsuit study but I do think I sparked an idea for them to do an entirely new examination of brain function.

But of all the scientific and medical experiences that I have ever even heard of, nothing looms larger in my imagination than Standardized Patients.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of a standardized patient, these are actors that are hired to portray a particular illness or medical condition so that med students can practice their diagnostic skills and bedside manner. When I first heard about this from a friend in med school, I couldn’t believe it was real. But she told me that, in fact, at her particular med school, many actors make a full time living by doing Shakespeare summer stock in the warm months and then impersonating extremely sick people in the winters.

Just think! One day, you’re playing King Lear and the next, you’re getting palpated for hernias by a sweaty first year hoping to not fail his exams. One minute you’re in Troilus & Cressida giving a speech about dirt-rotten livers, whissing lungs, and bladders full of imposthume. And then the next thing you know you’re paying rent by getting diagnosed with them.

It’s an incredible world, one that I will certainly write a sitcom about one day.

One story I heard about standardized patients will stay with me until the day I die. I think about it at least once a week. I’m going to change a few details and not include names to protect the identities of the innocent. But essentially, there are tiers of standardized patients. You get paid one rate to just come in and pretend you have the flu. You get paid more if you let them give you a physical exam (e.g. listen to your heart, check your abdomen for tenderness, etc.). And then you get paid the most if you allow the patients to do an intimate exam on you. As you can imagine, there aren’t a lot of people who are thrilled to be the first pap smear a would-be doctor ever attempts.

So this med student I know walked into a room, knowing he was going to have to give a standardized patient a prostate exam. The med student was already nervous! He was getting observed and evaluated on this! But then he walked in the room and he discovered not one standardized patient, but two. That’s because it was also the standardized patient’s first day! So now there was a nervous not-yet-doctor, a nervous not-yet-patient, and the head standardized patient who was there to observe and give comments on the actor’s performance. It was a lot!

As soon the med student began the exam and, to put it delicately, put his finger inside, the standardized patient immediately passed out. So then the med student screamed, “Oh my god, I killed him!” and the head standardized patient had to call in reinforcements to revive the guy passed out mid-exam and calm down the now highly agitated future doctor.

Ultimately, I’m told they both passed and were hired for full time positions. And you know what? That’s why you practice on an actor instead of a rando. As the great bard once said:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

My projects and upcoming events:

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Sara Sanford helps companies use data-backed standards to fight gender bias. On this episode, we talked about what concrete steps workplaces and individuals can take. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts)

LIVE TALK: TED Conference 2024 - April 15-19, Vancouver. I’ll be giving a mainstage TED Talk at the conference this year. Info and details on attending here

This week’s list

GREAT:

Tommy Orange’s book There, There is one of my favorite novels. So I was already a fan of his writing. This story, about a visit he paid to a classroom of students reading his work, made me a fan of him as a person. But this is really the story of an incredible teacher, Rick Ouimet, who I hope gets a lot of public recognition and praise for the care and love he’s bringing into his classroom.

“It’s not often that an author walks into a room full of readers, let alone teenagers, who talk about characters born in his imagination as if they’re living, breathing human beings. And it’s equally rare for students to spend time with an author whose fictional world feels like a refuge. Of all the classroom visits he’s made since ‘There There’ came out in 2018, the one at Millennium Art Academy earlier this month was, Orange said later, “‘the most intense connection I’ve ever experienced.’” A Bronx Teacher Asked. Tommy Orange Answered.

FUNNY:

Mary Beth Barone is such a smart and funny comedian. She somehow manages to combine a deadpan delivery with very clearly having a good time on stage. I don’t quite know how that’s possible, but she’s the master of it. She’s a great performer and a great joke writer. Most people know her from her hilarious podcast, Ride, that she co-hosts with her best friend Benito Skinner, so this first standup special is her time to shine solo. Mary Beth Barone: Thought Provoking

INTERESTING:

“Martin Luther King Jr’s 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War offers a powerful moral compass as we face the challenges of our time.” Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, wrote about how to engage with the suffering and injustices of the world without giving in to despair. Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now (h/t The Ann Friedman Weekly)

BONUS FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS:

Paying subscribers make Bright Spots possible! Subscribers get access to special features as well as all posts in the archive. This week’s subscriber bonus is the video (and some more info) from that swim study I did. See it all! Paying subscribers also get my undying gratitude (which never dies). It’s never too late to join them…

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Hoping the doctors rehearse many times before they go for my exits,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.