Summary

Leslie Jamison works as a medical actor which means that she pretends to be a patient for medical students to practice diagnostics and bedside manner. She is given the information necessary to play a twenty-three-year-old woman named Stephanie Phillips who is suffering from conversion disorder in which her grief over losing her brother manifests itself as seizures. After playing her role, Leslie has to score the medical students on a checklist in which the most important question is whether or not the medical student voiced empathy for the patient. Leslie reflects on the different ways that the students demonstrate empathy, noting that it is not only about listening but also about asking the right questions.

Leslie then writes about her own medical status. She is 25 years old and is seeking to terminate a pregnancy; she is also about to have heart surgery...