We at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hire trained, professional actors to be Standardized Patients (SPs) at The Morchand Center. In addition to solid acting training and a well-developed approach to craft, actors must also display consummate professionalism, excellent verbal and written communication skills, a prodigious memory, and a high level of comfort with improvisation.
We use a rotating cast of 150 professional actors and have more than 1,000 professional actors in our database. Our database also includes proctors, who help facilitate the daily programs, and video techs who control and monitor the videotaping of all seven interactions simultaneously.
For the audition, actors perform two contrasting monologues, preferably from published plays. Those selected to attend a call-back audition participate in a group improv exercise and an orientation session that explains Center policies and procedures.
Submission Guidelines: We encourage professional actors of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, as well as ages and physical types, to submit applications. If you are fluent in a foreign language, please make note of it on your resume and in your cover letter. To apply, submit a cover letter, headshot, and resume to morchandactorsubmission@gmail.com or to:
The Morchand Center for Clinical Competence
One Gustave L. Levy Place
Box 1127
New York, NY 10029
Actor Submission
Note: Please do not call The Morchand Center or email individual employees.
Quality Control Among Actors
To ensure reliable evaluation, The Morchand Center implements rater and inter-rater reliability reviews of all Standardized Patients (SPs). We monitor our performances and evaluations of learners to assure their consistency, accuracy, and reliability. We look specifically at the following:
- Accuracy and consistency of physical portrayals
- Appropriateness of historical data supplied during performance
- Accuracy/Appropriateness of overall affect/demeanor in performance
- Consistency of portrayals amongst SPs playing the same case
- Consistency of one SP's portrayal of the same case from encounter to encounter
- Accuracy of an SP's evaluations compared to a gold standard