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Operating Theatre Work Praised in New Book

A thoughtful assessment of the work of Operating Theatre in medical education, in particular in comparison to simple role-play, is outlined in a new book, Theatre in Health and Care.

The author, Emma Brodzinksi, senior lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the Royal Holloway, University of London, studied the work of Operating Theatre in 2006, attending two performances at Newcastle Medical School.

In particular, Brodzinski is interested in the part that the promotion of empathy between doctor and patient plays in Operating Theatre’s way of working, this as opposed to role-play which, her research seemed to suggest  was  viewed by some students at least as ‘ a type of technical coaching.’

The teenage pregnancy play, A Bit of Respect, was the first Operating Theatre work seen by Brodzinski. It is also the first students experience, this being only a matter of days into their first semester at medical school.  The play features two medical student characters carrying out a pregnancy study at a patient’s home,  something which the real students would shortly be doing themselves.

Talking to the  — real — students about their experience, Brodzinski found the play, and the hot-seating afterwards,  allowed the audience to engage not just with the young patient but  with their fictional alter-egos. It appeared to promote not just ‘an engagement with the patient as a whole person’    but allowed the  audience to engage   with ‘their  own worries, concerns and expertise.’

Brodzinski also attended a second Operating Theatre play Lower Than The Surrounding Surface, this accompanied by a different form of workshop, Who Else Is The Room. The  features a patient suffering from depression, and a doctor suffering herself with personal problems. In the workshop that follows, participants are asked to become characters in both the patient’s and doctor’s lives.

This plus Brodzinksi’s experience at the young pregnancy play leads her to conclude that, with Operating Theatre’s work, people do not ‘ learn’ to communicate, and are not assessed according to skills,  but develop ‘ a more empathetic perspective.’ She judges this to be ‘ particularly useful to clinical professionals who may find themselves in complex and emotive situations.’

Operating Theatre’s work, she says, ‘moves away from “performing” empathic behaviours to inhabiting them as a rehearsal for real-life encounters.’

Theatre in Health and Care, Emma Brodzinski: Palgrave Macmillan

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