Jodie Whittaker was given basic medical training for her new role in ‘Trust Me’.
The 35-year-old actress portrays Cath Hardacre – also known as Dr. Ally Sutton – in the forthcoming doctor drama and has admitted she was shown how to do resuscitation on a dummy and was given the opportunity to cannulate – a technique in which a thin tube is placed inside a vein to provide venous access – the show’s writer, Dan Sefton.
Asked if she was given medical training, she said: "Yes! The writer, Dan Sefton, who is also medical consultant and a doctor outside of TV production, showed us a load of stuff that he used when he was training people. He brought in the CPR dummy and showed us how to do a cannula and he, very bravely, let me put a cannula in his vein. I did it right, thank God! Also, YouTube is amazing. The genius of the internet is that you can basically sit at home and Google medical procedures, and TV shows such as 24 hours in A&E, which I watched hours of."
However, although she was given training, Jodie felt she slipped up numerous times but was able to cover it up because her alter ego was "out of her depth."
She explained: "With regards to the technical stuff, we had an on-set consultant so there was always someone to help when we had to do the procedures.
"The best thing for me was that my character was also out of her depth and didn’t always know what she was doing so it kind of covered my own personal fumbles.
"I’m not someone who likes to over prepare for dialogue scenes, because I think that makes me not listen to what the other person is saying as I’ve already decided how I’m going to do it.
"It immediately makes it interesting and new and you can’t plan for that, which is great. You can’t ‘wing’ the medical stuff so I had to do my research for that."
The psychological thriller follows the struggles of Cath Hardacre (Whittaker) as she’s sacked from her nursing job on the cardiology ward for whistle blowing after she expresses her concerns about the hospital’s standards slipping.
Drowning her sorrows at a party, the hard-working nurse stumbles upon her best friend Dr. Ally Sutton’s discarded paperwork after she learns that she’s leaving her life as an A&E doctor and immigrating to New Zealand with her new husband.
In a desperate attempt to save her career and make a new life for herself, Cath steals her friend’s identity and accepts a job at a failing emergency department.
But her world looks set to crumble and her big secret could be revealed as her good-for-nothing ex-partner Karl (Blake Harrison) is desperate to win her back and a journalist is chasing her about the issues at her former hospital.
‘Trust Me’ will air on the BBC on August 8.
Jodie Whittaker’s medical training for Trust Me
