"Research your symptoms," says Eve Muller, a Los Angeles-based actress who has been working in medical schools as a simulated patient since 1990. Bodies manifest ailments in recognizable patterns that medical professionals are trained to observe and diagnose. It is not enough to say your belly hurts; exactly where and how does it hurt? Stomach pain could be food poisoning, an ectopic pregnancy, pelvic inflammatory disease, appendicitis, twisted ovarian tubes or something else entirely. Know your malady's pathology and describe it with specificity. "You need to know anatomy," Muller says.
Before she interacts with students, a medical school gives Muller a detailed case study outlining the pretend patient's medical history, biography, symptoms and sometimes even scripted lines. Be similarly thorough in your preparation. If the condition requires a repeated physical action, like a limp or the trembling associated with Parkinson's disease, watch videos of real patients online and mimic their behavior in front of a mirror or on video. Use makeup, hair and clothing to help tell your story. "Look the part," says Muller, who paints bruises and rashes onto her body. She drinks yogurt smoothies to sound phlegmy if she's portraying someone with congestion. Sometimes she wears business attire; for other characters she jams dirt under her fingernails and rubs oil in her hair.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/magazine/how-to-feign-an-illness.html?
