Interview with an OSCE Actor - Mark Janicello
Get to know Mark Janicello, one of our actors in the NMC OSCE mock exams! During the NMC OSCE courses at IELTS Medical we enjoy recreating the exam to give you proper practice. Learn more: https://www.oscenurses.com/ Mark Janicello is also the star of the upcoming movie, "The Finellis" which is being released on Janaury 18, 2022 on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Google Play Movies and TV. Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/326267348
Transcript
Well, I play actually three characters, one character has two different versions. There's Pat Bell and there's Bob West. And Pat Bell has had a car accident and comes in with a head trauma, so he's also got a bit of a cough. And then Bob West, in one version of Bob West, he has dementia, a light case of dementia and is preparing for a birthday party for his wife who died quite a few years earlier and he doesn't realize it. And in another version, depending on what the student needs, then Bob has a knee replacement and a bad chest cold.
What I find fascinating... I wasn't sure I would like doing this medical role play. Of course acting is acting, whether it's for medical training, or it's for a camera, or whatever. But what I found fascinating is watching the different students, the doctors, the nurses in training, how they react differently to the same character. So in one day you might see six or seven different nurses or doctors in training and each one behaves - with the same character with the same characteristics - completely differently. So it's quite a view into the world of medicine, which doctors have a good bedside manner, which need to work on their communication. And I find that fascinating.
Everyone that I've met here at IELTS Medical, they're all working extremely hard. They're very dedicated professionals who want to improve their skills. So when they're given notes by their instructors, you see them all internalizing, okay, how can I do this better? How can I better serve my patients in this situation. Of course it's made up, but in real life, it won't be. And one of the reasons that I do this is to play the characters fully, to give the students a real life equivalent. If you're playing somebody with dementia, it's a whole different manner than when you dealing with someone who doesn't have dementia. So if you play those characters fully, you give the students a chance to react in real time, in real life, without there being a medical risk of them doing something wrong for a patient who's actually ill.
I think you have book knowledge and then you have practical experience. What I think is a fantastic service IELTS Medical is providing to the NHS, to Great Britain, is training their nurses and doctors to react in real life situations. They're providing, having actors come in and playing patients with different medical issues. They're forcing them to take their book knowledge and internalize it to make it a part of their bedside manner so that they better react in real life. They'll be better doctors and nurses in a real life situation, in an emergency room, in a doctor's office, or in a hospital when they have to treat patients who have similar or even different medical conditions. The acting forces the students to behave as a human being, not as a robot repeating rote from a book. And that I think is a great, great service that IELTS Medical is providing.
Well, when I know I have to come to work here, I get a write-up the day before, or sometimes a few days before of which patient I'm playing and what that patient's medical history is, their personal history as well. Some of the patients are living in care homes, some of the patients are still at home. And so I prepare to play that character during all of the sessions with the doctors and nurses in training. And so I come in and of course, now we're in COVID, I'm not wearing a mask now, but generally I wear a mask. And then a nurse trainee will come in and go through what an actual session with a patient would be like.
And is it's my job to behave accordingly. If somebody communicates well with you as a patient, you react differently than when somebody seems like a robot who's not listening. And so I give back exactly what I'm getting. And some of the students really hate me because I'm tough, but I feel that it is in their best interest to try to give them as realistic a training as I possibly can. And so I work very hard to know the characteristics of the different character that I'm playing and their medical history. And if you start to cough in the middle of a session, you want your nurse or your doctor to react. And if they don't, it's like, "Eh, bad." No, not bad, but you know, this is something you need to work on.
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