Ellen Weiss can hardly see. David Schmitt can barely hear. Together, the elderly woman, who suffers from diabetes, congestive heart failure and arthritis, and the widower, who is recovering from a hip fracture, slowly shift through the halls of Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, N.J. Typical victims of aging's cruelest blows? Not really. Weiss is actually a resident in family practice, age 30, and Schmitt a medical student, 26. They have been assigned roles, ages and infirmities as an innovative part of their medical training.
Introduced in only a few medical centers so far, such role playing is designed to expose...