From
Issue #10, Fall 2005
ALL
ABOUT MEDICAL READERS THEATRE
by Todd L. Savitt
It
goes without saying that people are concerned about health-their own
and others'. We have all had experiences with sickness and care giving
and physicians and medical emergencies and hospitals and doctors' offices.
Our interest in matters relating to health is reflected in the many
stories written on the subject. Such stories provide case examples of
real-life occurrences that we can ponder and relate to our own situations.
To help laypeople and medical professionals alike consider some of the
issues that arise during illness, East Carolina University's Brody School
of Medicine has developed a medical readers' theater program based on
a number of carefully selected short stories about medicine.
Since
1988, our school has used medical readers' theater as a means both of
educating health care students and professionals at the university about
social and ethical issues in medicine and of establishing a dialog about
these issues with the citizens of eastern North Carolina. The concept
behind our readers' theater program is simple: adapt short stories about
medicine to a script, invite medical students to serve as the readers
(actors), perform the stories to public and medical audiences, and hold
post-performance discussions about the issues raised by the stories
with the audiences and the cast. The impact of these stories and discussions
is profound both on the performers and on the audience members. Future
physicians (cast members) have the opportunity to hear the thoughts
of their future patients and their peers and teachers in the audience,
and audience members have the opportunity to express their ideas and
feelings about the way medicine is practiced and about crucial ethical
and social issues in medicine to future physicians and to their community
or professional peers.
The readers need not be medical students-they
can be health professionals or laypeople. Anyone who can read aloud
can "do" readers' theater. The only requirements are some
willing readers and a good moderator for the discussions that follow
the performances. In the Spring of 2002 we published Medical Readers'
Theater: A Guide and Scripts through the University of Iowa Press. The
book contains a section on how to set up a readers' theater program,
followed by scripts for fourteen stories and suggested discussion questions
for each story.
The
ECU medical readers' theater program developed out of a grant submitted
to the North Carolina Humanities Council in 1988 by Nancy King, a professor
of law in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. Owing to her vision, three medical schools
in North Carolina (Duke University, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, and East Carolina University) established medical readers'
theater programs aimed at different geographical parts of the state.
Initially the North Carolina Humanities Council funded the project,
then administered an Exemplary Award for medical readers' theater from
the National Endowment for the Humanities. The program continues today,
sponsored, organized, and coordinated by the Department of Medical Humanities
of the Brody School of Medicine.
Todd L. Savitt,
PhD 252-744-2797
Department of Medical Humanities 252-744-2319 (Fax)
Brody School of Medicine savittT@mail.ecu.edu
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858-4354
Readers' Theater Stories
(Note: Use your favorite search engine to locate these
stories)
Stories
about Physicians and Patients
"A Face of Stone" By William Carlos Williams
A busy physician takes an instant dislike to a young immigrant couple
who bring their infant to the office for a check-up. The story tracks
the evolution of this initially poor physician/patient relationship.
"The
Girl With a Pimply Face" By William Carlos Williams
In making a house call on a sick baby at a working class family's tenement
a physician is immediately taken by the infant's young adolescent sister.
In the course of caring for the hopelessly ill infant the physician
helps the girl and deals with the poverty and strong emotions of the
children's mother.
"The
Use of Force" By William Carlos Williams
A physician called to the home of an immigrant couple must deal with
a very sick young girl who refuses to allow him to examine her throat.
"Fetishes"
By Richard Selzer
A woman who has never informed her husband about her false teeth is
told she must remove them to undergo surgery. In seeking a solution
to her dilemma she encounters several physicians with differing styles
and views.
Stories about
Being a Physician
"Ambulance" By Susan Onthank Mates
A medical student on her first solo ambulance ride cares for a dying
teenage patient and learns some lessons about medicine and life.
"Laundry"
By Susan Onthank Mates
A physician copes with the stresses of her own pregnancy and childbirth,
the death of a patient, and others' responses to her as a female clinician.
"Imelda"
By Richard Selzer
A medical student observes a well-respected, arrogant plastic surgeon
deal with a tragedy during surgery.
"Old
Doc Rivers" By William Carlos Williams
A physician recalls the ups and downs of a drug-and-alchohol using,
sometimes abusive, but extremely able, colleague. Various townspeople
offer vignettes and opinions about this controversial local doctor.
Stories about
Ethical and Social Issues
"Follow Your Heart" By Richard Selzer
The wife of a man whose organs have been transplanted into several patients
seeks solice from her grief in an unusual and ethically questionable
way.
"The
Enemy"
By Pearl S. Buck
A white American soldier falls into the hands of a Japanese physician
during World War II in enemy territory. The Japanese physician dislikes
whites and must struggle with issues of loyalty, duty, wartime medicine,
and racism.
"The
Doctors of Hoyland" By Arthur Conan Doyle
A second physician opens practice in the English town of Hoyland and
causes the physician who has been in practice there for years much anguish
over gender issues.
Stories about
Aging and Chronic Illness
"He" By Katherine Anne Porter
A poor, proud rural farm family that relied on the help of a strong
but now sickly mute and mentally handicapped son must decide whether
to send him off to a county home for lower cost care.
"A Mistaken
Charity" By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Local do-gooders convince two independent elderly sisters, one hard
of hearing and the other blind, to leave their dilapidated rural house
and move into a retirement home in town, with interesting consequences.
"Management"
By Margaret Lamb
An elderly African-American woman living on social security in an unsafe
neighborhood copes with robbery, the social service bureaucracy, and
a questionable move to a new apartment.
(HOME)
