teaching improv as part of med school curriculum

[Jodi Cohen]

am talking with some folks at UW-Madison med school about teaching 'applied improv' as part of the medical school curriculum. do you know of any studies that discuss/explore improv and med school/medicine/medical world?
my proposal has to have specific benefits and outcomes for students, which i'm working on. if you have anything already written to share, please do. thank you.

[Allison Gilmore]

Jodi,

I've taught at the medical school at Emory. We've done a couple of different things - teaching ER residents how to improvise in order to learn how to handle life/death types of situations in a caring way. I've also taught med school professors improv skills as a way of coping with the stresses that they receive from their residents in their weekly small group meetings.

One of the professors that I work with at our business school is dually aligned at the medical school. Just taught for him this weekend, so in our follow up debriefs, will ask him for his insight on applications to medical school environment.

Would also agree with Robin below RE Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It is heavily focused on medicine environment and thinking "in the moment".

[Jodi Cohen]

allison: thank you for writing back! i'd love to talk with you about your comments. are you available to talk sometime? you can email me directly at [e-mail] with your contact info. i appreciate this info and have some questions about it. jodi

[Shawn Kinley]

Hi Jodi...
Medical practice and training in Calgary has utilised impro trained performers to aid in role based diagnostic work and other areas of the training. I've had a few friends involved and they always say it's great fun. They are often better at these types of training activities than the average performer because of their ability to react and respond quickly.

As for actual training TO the medical student... I don't know of any ongoing training although I and many other improvisation instructors have given many 'one off' sessions. It would be great to see more ongoing training in the area of ethics, bed side manner, human relations, etc...

shawn

[Robin McCulloch]

If you haven't done so you should have a look at "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. There is a section in there that talks about how humour and having a good beside manner can reduce maipractice suits. It is not a direct improv link but it made me think of the value of learning to improvise when I read it.