How to Get Paid for Being a Patient

Summary

The website content discusses the experience of being paid to serve as a patient for medical students' training, emphasizing the educational value and personal satisfaction derived from the role.

Abstract

The article describes the author's experience as a paid patient model for medical students, where they are examined for a heart murmur. The students practice clinical skills by rotating among patient models with various mild heart conditions. The author, who has worked in healthcare management, appreciates the students' professional demeanor and the use of medical terminology to maintain a sterile environment. The article highlights the importance of this training for students' confidence and diagnostic skills, and it suggests that being a patient model is a valuable way to contribute to medical education while earning compensation. The author also compares this job to another where one is paid for lying down, alluding to sex work, and concludes that donating one's body to science while alive is preferable to posthumous donation.

Opinions

The author values the educational benefit of their role, helping students learn to diagnose heart conditions.
Professional and sterile medical language is crucial for setting the right tone during examinations.
Students with more confidence and a firmer touch in their examinations tend to perform better diagnostically.
The author enjoys contributing to the training of future healthcare professionals and finds satisfaction in the role.
The pay for being a patient model is not substantial, but the satisfaction of being of service is a form of compensation.
The author makes a humorous comparison between being a patient model and another profession involving lying down, implying that the former is more respectable.
The author prefers to educate medical students while alive, rather than donating their body to science after death.
The experience has taught the author that the human spirit is merely housed within the physical body, which can be a learning tool for others.

How to Get Paid for Being a Patient

Do you like going to the doctor?

Hush Naidoo Jade Photography at Unsplash

I am paid to be a patient. I have a heart murmur, and students in medical school need practice identifying and listening to a heart murmur. They also need practice examining patients who are presenting a wide range of medical issues, most acted out by healthy patient models as if they were presenting medical conditions. The students then have to make the diagnoses.

Yesterday twelve students, one at a time, asked me if they could palpate my chest, slide the stethoscope under my hospital gown, instructed me to lift up my breast tissue so they could listen to my heart. It is a bit like hide-and-seek. I now know the best place to listen for the murmur, and that they are supposed to identify it as the mitral valve.

They must be trained to say “hold up your breast tissue” as there are many non-medical ways to communicate the same thing, like “move your boob.” Medical, sterile language helps set the right tone, and each student made the same request with the same words.

Three other patients in the room had other mild heart conditions, to be diagnosed as the students rotated among us. One was a senior, like me, but he had a surprisingly great physique. We were moving our hospital gowns around a lot, so one does notice.

I got poked by nervous students, and I am glad to help out. I worked in healthcare as a manager. I guided medical residents in areas about which I knew nothing. I assumed an air of confidence and asked clarifying questions or provided reassurance, and always suggested to “ask your supervising physician” if it were a medical question. Most of the time, we just need someone in a position of authority to reassure us.

The students with the most assurance and the firmer touch inspired more confidence in me as a patient. They also identified the murmur more easily. Two young women, conferring with each other, could not identify anything wrong with me after quietly and tentatively listening with their stethoscopes. One young man had the best question: “Do you have any feedback for me?” Another student pair came up with the wrong diagnosis. One suggested she heard a galloping heart, and the other one listened and agreed. The wrong message communicated ahead of time shapes the response.

A friend is a hypochondriac and I think she would make a great model patient. She has complaints about every new twinge, and appointments with doctors are a major activity in her retirement.

Many large cities have academic medical centers. Even chiropractic schools, naturopathic schools, or acupuncture schools need models. My son was an acupuncture patient model as a college student. Generally, the more nudity or intrusive procedures are required, the more the pay. However, at an on-call hourly rate, nobody is getting rich, other than in satisfaction of being of service.

There’s only one other job I know of where you are paid for lying down and responding to direction. The hourly rate is better, but I wouldn’t like the working conditions. One could also leave one’s body to science, but I prefer to educate while I am still inhabiting this mortal flesh. I have given birth, after which I figure embarrassment is rather useless. The other advantage is you are reminded your spirit is just in this container of fat and muscles, organs and blood vessels, bones and skin. Someone might as well poke and prod, if they learn something.