Careers
Retired Lawyers Make Good Pretend Patients for Med Students
Retired lawyers who want to earn some extra cash might want to consider an acting job—portraying pretend patients for students training to become health care professionals.
Retired lawyers and engineers are good candidates to perform the role of a “standardized patient,” or “SP,” partly because they can remember information well, the Washington Post reports. The SP has to remember up to 20 different points about how the student performed.
Some standardized patients are actors, but they don’t always do the best job, especially since improvisation is not allowed and overacting is discouraged.
Pay typically ranges from $17 to $35 an hour, though pretend patients can earn as much as $55 an hour for breast and vaginal exams.
