Unexpected path leads 2024 Miami graduate to fulfilling career
Tammy Sanow works as professional standardized patient
Unexpected path leads 2024 Miami graduate to fulfilling career
Tammy Sanow works as professional standardized patient
From theatre to the medical field isn’t exactly a common path.
For Tammy Sanow, it wasn’t even expected.
When she graduated from Miami University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre, she didn’t plan on working in medical education. But the role quickly became something more meaningful than she imagined.
“I really didn’t expect it,” Sanow said. “But I do enjoy it; it’s honestly really fun and way more fulfilling than I thought it would be.”
Sanow works as a professional standardized patient at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. In the role, she acts out medical scenarios for resident students, helping them learn not just how to diagnose, but how to communicate in emotionally complex situations.
Her introduction to the field began in a Miami course called Acting for Medical Simulation, where students were given detailed patient case files and asked to bring them to life.
“You get a case file, like your person’s age, all of their background information,” she said. “And you know what’s wrong with you, but the resident doesn’t.”
What follows is less about memorization and more about transformation.
“You have to memorize a case and then take it and embody it,” Sanow said. “Like, if I broke my arm, how do I act like that?”
That idea, understanding the patient as a person and not just a condition, became central to a larger collaboration between Miami faculty and St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio.
Nathan French, associate professor of Global and Intercultural Studies, helped design the collaboration in order to improve medical resident’s communication with patients during stressful situations, where the intersection between religion and medical care may conflict.
“Medical residents think about medicine through a very clinical lens,” French said. “As a result, though, residents often don’t think about the religious or spiritual identities of their patients.”
In a Catholic healthcare setting like St. Rita’s, those factors can directly shape care. Yet, prior to this, St. Rita had primarily only worked with medical dummies, highly realistic manikins used for the practice of medical procedure. French ventured to make that practice more substantial.
“The course that we designed was to encourage these residents to think about how and where religion and spirituality appear, in their relationship to their patients,” French said.
To make the learning more tangible, the program introduced standardized patient simulations, bringing Sanow into the room to recreate real-world scenarios.
In one case, Sanow portrayed a patient navigating a situation shaped by religious and ethical limitations.
“It allowed our residents to encounter what that scenario might look like, in a way that is safe for them to succeed and safe for them to fail,” French said.
But the impact of these simulations doesn’t end when the scene is over. For Sanow, the most important part comes afterward, when she gives feedback directly to the residents.
“I don’t like telling people they did something wrong; that makes me feel so bad,” she said. “But that’s how they learn.” That moment, where performance turns into reflection, is where the learning sticks.
The collaboration itself also reflects something larger happening at Miami: disciplines that don’t normally overlap coming together to create something new.
“I don’t know many institutions, where you can see a professor of Theatre, a professor of Religion, and a professor in Entrepreneurship come together and create a curriculum that changes the way that healthcare is done,” French said. “That was a big ‘Miami Moment.’”
For Sanow, the experience ultimately reshaped how she sees her own role.
“I’m not gonna be the person to cut someone open or tell them a diagnosis and what’s wrong with them,” she said. “So I feel like it’s a really good way for me to help contribute to these kids’ education.”
And while she may never step into an operating room, Sanow is helping shape the people who will.